J. Absence or Delay of Reasons for Judgment

• Author: Julien D. Payne - Marilyn A. Payne
• Pages: 581-581

Appeals 581

J. ABSENCE OR DELAY OF REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

An appeal is from the formal order, not the reasons, and if the formal order reaches a cor-

rect conclusion in light of the evidence and the law, the appeal must be dismissed.53 While

it is not an error, in itself, for a trial judge to give a judgment without indicating the f‌indings

of fact and without giving the reasons for a support award, it is highly desirable for a trial

judge to give reasons in order to facilitate an appellate court ’s task of determining whet her

the trial judge’s conclusions are supported by the evidence or whether they disclose an error

in principle.

e absence of reasons for judgment places the appellate court under a serious disabil-

ity. If they are not volunteered, counsel proposing to appeal should request the judge to give

reasons for judgment to facilitate the appeal.54

A litigant is entitled to adequate, albeit not perfect, reason s for decisions made by a mo-

tion judge, even though these judges frequently have heavy daily dockets that require t hem

to quickly decide urgent issues in the face of conf‌lict ing and incomplete evidence. A motion

judge must give reasons for her decision so that a party can g ive informed consideration to

the advisability of an appeal and interested members of the public can satisfy themselves

whether or not justice has been done. e need for reasons is based on the following three

rationales:

(i) public conf‌idence in the administ ration of justice;

(ii) the right of the losing part y to know the reasons for having lost; and

(iii) to make the right of appeal meaningfu l.

e adequacy of reasons must be determined by a functional approach that applies the

aforementioned rationales. Where the table amount of child support is ordered for adult

children pursuing post-secondary education, an explanation of the specif‌ic amount is not

required. But where a judge exercises his discretion to f‌ix support for the children under

section 3(2)(b) of the Federal Child Support Guidelines, reasons for the amount ordered

must be provided. e amount of support ordered pursuant to section 3(2)(b) cannot be

determined without f‌indings of fact relating to “the condition, means, needs and other cir-

cumstances of the child[ren] and the f‌inancial ability of each parent to contribute to the

support of the child[ren].” Where a motion judge has neither articulated the law nor the

evidence relied upon in f‌ixing the amount of support ordered under section 3(2)(b) of the

Federal Child Support Guidelines and the record does not enable an appellate court to ma ke

the requisite f‌indings, the appellate court has no alternative except to remit the matter for

a fresh hearing with a n appropriately enhanced record.55

Justice may sometimes be better served by an announcement of the disposition of the

issues as soon as the deliberation process is completed, but before full w ritten reasons can

be made available to the parties. e f‌iling of a notice of appeal after the disposition has

been announced does not preclude the appellate court from considering the reasons for

judgment that are subsequently released.56

53 Stricker v. Stricker (1994), 4 R.F.L. (4th) 29 (Alta. C.A .); Razutis v. Garrett, [1999] B.C.J. No. 1505 (C.A.).

54 Bacon v. Stonehouse, (1990), 25 R.F.L. (3d) 71 (Ont. Div. Ct.); compare Voor tman v. Voor tman (1994), 4

R.F.L. (4th) 250 (Ont. C.A.).

55 Bodnar v. Blackma n, [2006] O.J. No. 3675 (C.A.).

56 Crocker v. Sipus (1992), 41 R.F.L. (3d) 19 at 24 (Ont. C.A .), Arbour J.A.