Friday, January 25, 2013

Civil contempt rarely appropriate in family law matters

Hefkey v. Hefkey, 2013 ONCA 44 holds:

[3]          Moreover, in our view, the civil contempt remedy should not have been sought in the circumstances revealed by the record.  The civil contempt remedy is one of last resort.  It should not be sought or granted in family law cases where, as here, other adequate remedies are available to the allegedly aggrieved party.  The courts have repeatedly stressed that great caution must be exercised when considering contempt motions in family law proceedings.  Contempt findings in such cases should be made only sparingly and, as we have said, as a last resort "where conferences to try to resolve access problems or motions for enforcement have failed": see K.(L). v. G.(T), [2006] W.D.F.L. 2571 (Ont. S.C.), at para. 58.  See also Fisher v. Fisher, [2003] O.J. No. 976 (S.C.); and Martinez v. Martinez, [1984] O.J. No. 721 (Ont. Prov. Ct. (Fam. Div.)).


13 comments:

Anonymous said...

This decision is consistent with very nearly every other decision in the past 5 years concerning contempt in family law.

Any comments from SCJ judges during contempt motions brought in Brantford or Simcoe area suggest their default position (possibly because of legal education courses) is that they will never ever entertain a finding of contempt being made against a custodial spouse.

In such a hostile judical environment I would never recommend a contempt motion to the litigant.

Better to do nothing then to lose and have your client and yourself castigated in front of the other spouse which only makes them more powerful.

The only way forward is to conference, conference, conference and wear the otherside down with repeated conference attendances until they relent and settle on terms which "cures" the contempt.

The worst thing to do is actually argue your losing motion.

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