As the Ontario court in Kastia v. Ahlgren put it very recently: “Court orders are meant to be followed”.
If you’re embroiled in Family litigation – whether a separation, divorce, or child-related disputes – you might be tempted to disobey a court order that did not go in your favour. “What’s the worst that could happen?”, you might wonder.
Well, as the wife in a recent Ontario divorce proceeding learned the heard way, there can be stiff repercussions if you ignore a court order – including potential jail time.
In Thwaits v. Thwaits, the divorcing couple had jointly agreed to a court-imposed order for what is called an “interim preservation and non-dissipation order”. This required them both to refrain from dissipating their assets pending their divorce trial (i.e. to avoid selling or giving them away, during the pre-trial period). The order covered several parcels of real estate owned solely by the wife, and certain funds that would be the subject of the court’s focus in the upcoming proceeding.
Unfortunately the wife quite did the opposite: She took out two mortgages on one of those properties, and transferred another (a condo unit) to her sister. To her mother who was living in Korea, she paid $180,000 – on “moral compulsion”, the wife said, since she allegedly owed her mother money.
Not surprisingly, the husband objected, and the matter came before the court. On a first hearing, the court had no trouble concluding the wife’s behaviour – which she admitted – was “flagrant and deliberate”, and was in clear breach of the interim preservation and non-dissipation order. In terms of culpability, it made no difference that husband had no financial interest in the real estate given away; it was all subject to the Family proceedings which had not yet been resolved. Plus, as it turned out, the wife’s sister died soon after being transferred the condo; with no Estate proceedings commenced, that property would essentially be “tied up” for the foreseeable future.
Having found the wife in clear contempt, the court nonetheless gave her four months within which to cure the breach (known as “purging the contempt”). In other words: A second chance to comply with the initial order.
But the wife did nothing to fix the situation in that time, other than simply asking for the return of the $180,000 from her mother – who flatly refused.
In the court’s view, these were not her “best efforts” to purge the contempt, and was not enough to avoid being punished. It rejected the wife’s argument that since she had never previously defied a court order and had apologized, she should get only a pardon and a verbal admonishment.
The court explained that sentence for civil contempt have two main objectives: 1) coercing compliance; and 2) preventing the administration of justice from falling into disrepute. Under the Ontario Family Law Rules, when faced with contempt the court can choose between various sanctions that imprisonment, the issuance of a fine, requiring payment of a penalty to the other party – or anything else that the court decides is appropriate. The chosen sentence had to be reasonable and proportionate to the nature of the offence, with aggravating and mitigating factors considered. Importantly, it should serve as a punishment to the person who stood in contempt, while also being restorative to the victim.
In this case, the wife had knowingly made all the transfers despite being fully aware of the court order prohibiting it. Even though she was a hairdresser with limited means, she was ordered to pay into court the sum of $180,000, which was the same amount she had wrongly given to her mother. This would protect the husband’s position pending resolution of the Family litigation, and would be held by the court until then.
Importantly, the court added that if the wife failed to make this payment, she would be immediately incarcerated for 15 days, then brought back before the court for further instructions.
For the full text of the decisions, see:
Thwaits v. Thwaits, 2024 ONSC 2021 (CanLII) <https://canlii.ca/t/k3xvx>
Kastia v. Ahlgren, 2026 ONSC 146 (CanLII) <https://canlii.ca/t/khf6g>
