This Month in NS Family Law – June 2021

Colucci v. Colucci, 2021 SCC 24 Martin J., Wagner C.J. and Abella, Moldaver, Karakatsanis, Côté, Brown, Rowe and Kasirer JJ. Concurring Issues: Retroactive child support | Rescinding child support arrears This Supreme Court of Canada decision created a new approach to retroactive child support and arrears. The parties had a nine-year marriage. The mother has […]

April 12, 2021

Significant Changes to the Divorce Act RSC 1985 c 3

Parliament passed Bill C-78, an Act to Amend the Divorce Act, which received Royal Assent on June 21, 2019 and came into force March 1, 2021, amending the Divorce Act RSC 1985 c 3 (hereinafter referred to as the “Act”). The amendments to the Divorce Act are substantial, the first significant updates to the Act […]

April 12, 2021

Family Law Mediation: why cut what you can untie?

The breakdown of a marriage or relationship can be an overwhelming and tense time for the family unit. It is a financial, emotional and legal crisis. A drawn out legal proceeding can come at a high financial and emotional cost and it can further damage an already strained relationship. While an aggressive legal strategy may […]

This Month in NS Family Law – March 2021

Our NS Family Law team provides summaries of recent cases which have appeared in the Nova Scotia Supreme Court and the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal.

November 19, 2020

New Brunswick Court of Appeal Rules on Child Support Obligations...

The New Brunswick Court of Appeal’s decision in ASL v LSL, 2020 NBCA 15, reaffirmed the high standard on judges determining child support obligations for parents with equal amounts of parenting time. Background In ASL, the parties had a separation agreement, signed shortly after their separation, which provided the parents with roughly equal parenting time […]

December 5, 2019

New Brunswick Court of Appeal Limits Appellate Intervention in Motion...

In Babin v. C.J.M. Dieppe Investments Ltd. and TG 378 Gauvin Ltd., 2019 NBCA 44, the New Brunswick Court of Appeal made clear that it will not interfere lightly with a motion judge’s discretionary decision to grant partial summary judgment, particularly where a decision on the merits is correct in law.  The Court of Appeal […]

Rule 22 Motions: No Discovery? No Problem!

In Linda Trevors v. Anne Doucet, Lea Allard, Enterprise Rent-A-Car Canada Company, and Co-operators General Insurance,1  (hereinafter “Trevors v. Doucet”) the moving party applied for summary judgment early in the proceeding.  Discovery had not yet occurred.  The applicants were successful on the motion despite allegations it was premature. Background On May 16, 2015, a head […]

November 6, 2017

Case Commentary: Does the rule against “double-dipping” apply to a...

As the Honourable Madam Justice Newbury states in the opening paragraphs of the decision in Parrett v. Parrett, 2016 BCCA 151, the facts of this case are “unremarkable.”

Fraud of Homecare Administrator Survives Bankruptcy Discharge

Over the course of two years, a retirement home administrator by the name of Melissa Gibson-Heath stole $229,000 from an elderly resident of the retirement home where she worked, the Fairfield Manor East.

New Summary Judgment Motion Rule Introduced in New Brunswick: More...

As of January 1, 2017, Rule 22 of the New Brunswick Rules of Court for ‘Summary Judgment’ was repealed and replaced. Rule 22 for Summary Judgment has now been transformed from a means to weed out unmeritorious claims to a significant alternative model of adjudication.