For some couples, their high-conflict Family litigation against each other lasts significantly longer than their marriage did in the first place. It may drag on with no end in sight, because one (or both) of the former spouses has dug in their heels, and has refused to cooperate with the other spouse and with the court.
The recent ruling in Carter v. Carter is this category, which involved a couple that had been married for 10 years. The court begins the factual narrative of their litigation this way:
The parties’ relationship was marked with the husband’s alcohol abuse, numerous criminal charges and convictions, and multiple incidents of family violence by him. This current round of the litigation has been pending for more than 14 years. …
Beginning before the date of the parties’ ultimate separation, the husband has engaged in a multi-year long pattern of deceit and obstruction respecting the true state of his financial affairs. His goal has been to keep all of the family’s wealth for himself, or as the wife says, to ensure that she and the children would leave the relationship penniless. His behaviour over the years since the litigation resumed has included chronic non-disclosure, the diversion of assets, the failure to value assets and income that required expert evidence, breaching various Orders of this Court, contempt, and fraud.
In addition to seeking significant amounts of unpaid child and spousal support and unpaid costs, the wife had asked for an equalization payment totalling about $4 million. The husband responded by claiming he “does not owe the wife anything”, and indeed was trying to turn the tables by hiding assets and manipulating his finances to give the impression that she owed him.
The court then issued its lengthy and detailed rulings on the substantive issues (which incidentally had proceeded by way of an uncontested trial, since the husband’s pleadings had been struck a full 10 years earlier).
The court declared the husband to be “completely lacking in credibility”. It noted he had outright ignored most of the 97 orders already issued in the case, with no end in sight. For example, in one order the court had granted the husband an indulgence, by permitting him to file an opening statement for the trial even though his pleadings had been struck long ago. Yet even that proved too confining for the incorrigible husband: With the help of his lawyers, he disobeyed the court’s clear instructions on format, length and content, and instead prepared a rambling, overly-long unsworn affidavit-style statement consisting of 238 pages that also contained irrelevant, and impermissible unsworn materials.
The court predicted the husband would likely continue his obstructionist conduct right to the bitter end – resulting in further sanctions and enforcement measures. He already had a series of scheduled contempt of court hearings looming on the horizon.
Interestingly, the wife accused the husband’s own former lawyers of contempt, as the court explained:
Relatedly, the wife asserts that the husband’s former counsel are complicit in this, as they benefitted from the receipt of legal fees between $45,000 and $65,000 per year, paid by the husband … She seeks leave to proceed with a contempt motion against former counsel for the husband as an adjunct to this trial.
The court also granted this request, and allowed the contempt proceedings to go forward in connection with two specific lawyers at the firm that the husband had hired. That hearing would also take place at a later date.
For the full text of the decision, see:
Carter v. Carter, 2024 ONSC 5414 (CanLII), <https://canlii.ca/t/k7397>
