Contempt available only on currently existing orders

Fiorito v. Wiggins, 2015 ONCA 729:

[17]       The civil contempt remedy exists where a party fails to comply with a live or operative order of the court: Family Law Rules, r. 31(1); Prescott-Russell Services for Children and Adults v. G. (N.) (2006), 82 O.R. (3d) 686 (C.A.), at para. 27. In the present case, by the time of the 2011 hearing, the 2008 and 2010 Orders no longer were operative.  Those were interim orders.  They were superseded by the parties' 2010 agreement on custody and access contained in the final Minutes of Settlement. Consequently, there was no order outstanding in respect of which the trial judge could find the mother in contempt.  His finding of contempt and imposition of sentence on the mother therefore is set aside.

Of the Law Societies of Upper Canada and Nunavut