Stepfather granted parenting time, court docket prices regardless of mom’s objection

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Immediately’s fashionable household takes its form in some ways. And a complete new set of household legislation questions emerge when single mother and father type new relationships, as a result of step-parents and stepchildren are born. What occurs if the mother and father within the blended household separate? Does a step-parent have a proper to spend time with their stepchild regardless that the mother and father’ relationship has ended?

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That query was lately earlier than Justice Margaret Eberhard of Ontario’s Superior Courtroom of Justice. Within the case, a single mom of a one-year-old daughter met her new associate in July 2018 and the couple started residing collectively one month later. The brand new associate didn’t have any kids of his personal. Three years later, the connection ended. Shortly thereafter, the stepfather requested parenting time along with his stepdaughter, which the mom refused. In early October, the events made their method to the courtroom to resolve the dispute.

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In the course of the relationship, the stepfather mentioned he and the daughter shared an in depth bond, regardless of the relative brevity of the events’ relationship. Because the daughter by no means had a relationship together with her organic father, the brand new associate shortly grew to become a father determine. Based on the stepfather, he was concerned in all features of the daughter’s care and the daughter nearly all the time referred to as him “Daddy.”

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The mom’s view of the stepfather’s relationship with the daughter was nearly utterly at odds with the stepfather’s account. Based on the mom, she was all the time primarily chargeable for the care of the daughter and made all necessary choices for her, comparable to selection of daycare and medical remedy. The mom mentioned the daughter referred to as the stepfather by his first title and solely “often referred to as him Dad.”

The choose accepted the stepfather’s proof and rejected the mom’s, describing the proof as “past problem” that the mom and stepfather “each participated absolutely in parenting the kid.” The choose discovered there had been “no distinction drawn by cause of the (stepfather) not being the organic father” and that the mom “proclaimed and inspired (the stepfather’s) excellence in being a father or mother.”

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From there, the choose went on to use the legislation. To begin, the choose framed the query she was being requested: What’s the mom’s autonomy to boost her little one as she sees match, with out the stepfather’s involvement?

In help of her argument that the stepfather should have no parenting time, the mom pointed to a protracted line of court docket choices coping with a grandparent’s proper to spend time with a grandchild. The choose made clear the case earlier than her was totally different. The distinction is rooted in Ontario’s Youngsters’s Regulation Reform Act, which provides particular standing to an individual who has “fashioned a settled intention to deal with the kid as a baby of his or her circle of relatives.” For the choose, there was little question the stepfather had that particular standing.

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The stepfather’s particular standing was not determinative, nevertheless. The kid’s greatest pursuits all the time have precedence. Based on the choose, a willpower of greatest pursuits could embody components comparable to “size of the connection, the age and developmental stage of the kid throughout the relationship and when contact ceased, the size of time since contact ceased, and the extent of the step-parent’s participation in standard parenting imperatives.”

Within the consequence, the stepfather was granted parenting time along with his stepdaughter.

One of many challenges the choose confronted in making the order for parenting time was that 9 months had passed by after the events’ separation. Because the daughter had little, if any, contact together with her stepfather throughout that point, there was concern the daughter may expertise misery from the sudden reintroduction of the stepfather. The choose acknowledged that 9 months was a major hole for a younger little one.

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“There’s doubtless an inherent lack of the kid’s notion of the (stepfather) and her relationship with him because of that passage of time which might be mentioned to boost a threat in resumption,” the choose mentioned. Nevertheless, on this case, the true threat was the one “taken by the (mom) when she abruptly and unilaterally terminated an ongoing, dedicated, step-parent/little one relationship.”

Along with his request for parenting time along with his stepdaughter, the stepfather requested an “order that he be permitted to pay” little one help. Since he can have parenting time along with his stepdaughter, the stepfather now pays little one help to the mom.

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Whereas secondary to the primary difficulty within the case, the mom’s place created a threat that she must pay the stepfather’s authorized prices within the occasion he was granted parenting time. Given his success, the stepfather sought prices from the mom within the quantity of $26,570.27. The mom resisted on the idea that an order for prices would negatively affect her capability to take care of the kid. The choose disagreed and ordered the mom to pay prices of $20,000 to the stepfather.

Ultimately, as we speak’s fashionable household isn’t just a product of biology. Moderately, it’s constituted in many various methods. Whatever the technique of its formation, a baby’s greatest pursuits stay paramount when mother and father, or stepparents, separate.

Adam Black is a associate within the household legislation group at Torkin Manes LLP in Toronto. ablack@torkinmanes.com