T. Joinder and Consolidation of Actions; Adding of Parties

• Author: Julien D. Payne - Marilyn A. Payne
• Pages: 559-560

Page 559

A father, who seeks to vary support orders issuing from the Provincial Court and the Supreme Court of British Columbia with respect to children born of different relationships, may be allowed to raise and join the Provincial Court proceeding with the Supreme Court proceeding in order to promote efficiency in the disposition of both applications.¹⁶⁵Issues relating to the joinder and consolidation of actions and the adding of parties often arise in the context of judicial determination of the respective child support obligations of biological or adoptive parents and of step-parents or other persons who stand in the place of parents.¹⁶⁶On an application respecting child support, there is no automatic right to add parties. Before leave to add a party will be granted, the court must be satisfied that there is no other viable remedy.¹⁶⁷On an application for child support, the respondent parent’s cohabitant may be joined as a party pursuant to Rule 5.03(1) of the Ontario Rules of Civil Procedure or Rule 7(3) of the Ontario Family Law Rules, where their business and personal affairs are inextricably intertwined.¹⁶⁸In Rolls v. Rolls,¹⁶⁹the court refused to allow the mother to add her divorced husband’s common law partner and her corporation to the father’s application to reduce court-ordered child support because section 19(1) of the Federal Child Support Guidelines provided an alternative remedy for a failure to make proper financial disclosure, and the variation application imposed an onus on the divorced husband to prove his income and satisfy the court that it was lower than the amount previously imputed to him. The divorced husband’s cross-application to add the mother’s parents and their former companies was judicially perceived as retaliatory and was not justified merely because the parents had supported the mother and children in the face of the divorced husband’s failure to do so. The divorced husband’s application to add the biological father of two of the three children of the marriage was also rejected because the biological father’s obligation had been previously established by court order and a biological father’s responsibility does not extinguish the child support obligation of a step-parent standing in loco parentis to children. In rejecting all three of the aforementioned applications to add third parties, the court paid regard to the unnecessary complications and increased costs that would have been generated if the...