In Edwards v Robinson 2020 ONSC 2956, the mother brought an urgent motion on May 1st for the return of the parties’ two youngest children (the oldest is 20 years old) to her by the father, who had had them since March 25th.
The mother made allegations of domestic violence,
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McNeil v McGuinness 2020 ONSC 1918
In this case, which was identified by the court as having “a long history of conflict and litigation since the parties separated in 2012,” Justice Pazaratz declined to find the father’s motion to be urgent as set out in the March 15, 2020 Notice to the Profession.
Court says no to “self-help” remedy
In Burton v Woods 2020 ONCJ 158, Justice Pugsley was quick and clear in his response to a father who decided not to return the 10-year-old child to the mother at the end of his access time. The existing order, issued after a trial,
Child protection issues
There have been a few child protection cases that the courts have deemed urgent. A number of them deal with arranging some kind of contact between children in care and their parent(s) because agencies are not offering in-person supervised access at this time.
Others address issues of appropriate face to face contact between children in care and their parent(s) if there are concerns by the CAS that the parent may not follow appropriate steps to keep the child safe from COVID-19 exposure.
Rankin v Rankin (March 19, 2020): In this case, the wife brought an urgent motion for a restraining order against the husband. He was served late the day before the motion was heard but did not file responding materials or contact the wife’s lawyer.
Justice Fitzpatrick found that the matter was urgent and that an interim restraining order was warranted based on two factors: the evidence provided by the wife and the fact that there would be minimal prejudice to the husband since he and the wife did not live or work together.
Scion v White 2020 ONSC 1915: Neither party in this case had a lawyer. On March 24th, Justice Pazaratz issued a triage endorsement allowing the father’s access request to proceed as possibly urgent, but found that his financial and property issues were not urgent and so would not continue at the present time.
Thomas v Wohleber 2020 ONSC 1965: This is the first case to date that addresses the issue of urgency in a financial context. The two parties have been married for 11 years and have two children. No court orders were in place until the wife brought this motion without notice.
Onuoha v Onuoha 2020 ONSC 1815: The family had been living in Nigeria, but in October 2019, the mother brought the couple’s two children to Ontario. The father claimed that he had not consented to this and brought a Hague Convention application in Ontario for the return of his daughters.
Skuce v Skuce (2020 ONSC 1881): The Skuces separated in May 2019, with three young children. The children have lived with their mother since then, spending time with their father in informally supervised settings. The father is a recovering addict who has been clean and sober for various periods of time,
Two COVID-19 family law decisions addressing the issue of what makes a case “urgent” under the present court regime in Ontario have been decided on in the past week. One has been reported (Smith v Sieger, 2020 ONSC 1861); the other, Ribeiro v Wright, is expected to be reported shortly,
