Hi everyone, welcome back to Litigation Health. My name is Heather Hoey-Litwin. Today we're going to talk about the main stages of a family lawsuit.
This video is intended for those who are just starting a lawsuit or perhaps they're thinking about starting one and they want to know what's involved. Please note that this video is based on the law in Ontario, Canada and also the content is intended to be general information only. For advice specific to your case, please do consult a lawyer.
So joining me here today is our regular guest, family lawyer, Helena Burt. Hello, Helena. Hey, Heather.
Good to see you. It's been a long summer. It's been a long time. Yeah.
So, Helena, I would like you to give us a nutshell of what's involved in the lawsuit. But I think there's going to be a little bit more than a nutshell today, isn't it? Yeah, family law is a weird and wonderful thing. I will try to condense it down as best as I can. You can just cut me off whenever necessary.
Oh, boy. OK, so one of the things that I'm actually we had discussed before going on camera is, again, coming at it from your perspective and looking at because what you do is like just more general civil litigation. Yeah. You keep calling it a family law lawsuit. And for a family law practitioner, that really does sound very, very weird because although family law is a part of the general body of civil law, there are very specialized rules and very specialized processes that come into play when you're talking about family law.
You won't ever hear a family law lawyer call it a family lawsuit. You'll hear about a family law proceeding. You'll hear about family court cases or a family case.
But you very rarely hear the term lawsuit used. And there's probably a good reason for that. Okay, the big major dividing line we've got between the two types of law in Canada are criminal or civil. And in Canada, most types of law fall into one of the two categories.
It's either general civil law or it's criminal law. If we're talking about civil law, then the next major breakdown between that is general civil law and family law. So generally, just to help... people kind of understand what the difference is between the two because it really will help to get down to a more nuts and bolts understanding about the processes civil law deals with disputes between people or organizations they are usually about contracts wills property personal injury or so on an example of a civil dispute is where one person owes another person money usually in a lawsuit you're either suing for damages which means you're seeking an amount of money because you're saying somebody did you wrong, or you're trying to enforce a contract or some other agreement that's been reached that is enforceable by law. When you're talking about family law, family law generally involves issues that need to be decided when an intimate relationship breaks down.
And this includes who's going to have care of the children, the issues of child support, spousal support, property division and divorce, if the parties are married. because there are lots of family situations where the parties aren't married. Although all of these are technically civil law issues, there are very specific rules and court forms and processes specific to family law. Family law is significantly different from criminal and most civil law.
In most cases, family matters are not focused on determining who's at fault. Instead, what family law cases are designed to do is to try to preserve and respect. rights of all people who are involved in complicated legal issues that are arising out of the breakdown of a family relationship. So you're not just talking about a lawsuit, you go and live the rest of your life. Usually you're in a family law case, because your whole personal life is broken down.
So the rules and the whole approach the courts have taken is to say this should not be necessarily litigation based. It's the main format we have to use it. And we've talked about alternative dispute resolution before.
but especially a litigation process for dealing with these issues can be very, very hard. And there are specific rules that are set in place. So what we're looking at is we're saying when you're talking about a family law case, there is rarely any consideration of penalties or damages when you're talking about a family law case.
One party might be totally unhappy with how a judge rules in their family law case, dealing with divorce or support or property or parenting orders. But any order that's made is not meant to punish one of the... parties. The process and the orders are designed to give all parties fair outcomes in disputes between family members. In particular, courts in Canada and including Ontario are specifically required to consider the best interests of the children as a primary factor when they're dealing with any family law case if there are children involved.
That's just like a kind of brief description of saying why we are so different as family law practitioners and why family law as a concept is totally different from general civil law. So what I'm going to do is just do a really quick skim over of what the process in Ontario Family Courts is. Family law is complicated. There are a number of different statutes or laws that may apply in your situation. These include the Child Support Guidelines, Family Law Act.
the Children's Law Reform Act. I think we've talked about these in our other videos. And if you're married, then you've also got the Divorce Act that kicks in and comes into play. In Ontario, family court cases have to follow the procedures and rules that are set out in legislation.
And the main place that we look for these rules are called the family law rules. So the family law rules actually walk through what the court process is, and it's mandatory that this process be followed. If you're going to be involved in a family law case, you need to be familiar with the family law rules and follow them.
And I do have the site available for where you can find the family law rules. Heather, if you wanted to insert that at some point when we're doing this, you can. There are also specific court practice directions, which may vary from region to region.
It must also be followed as well. The other thing that helps people when they're trying to figure out the family court process is that there are guides that are available to assist people who are going through the family court process. If you're in the Superior Court of Justice, the Ministry of the Attorney General has a guide to processes for case at the Superior Court of Justice.
And again, I can give the website for that for you to post out there. If your matter is in the Ontario Court of Justice, you've got another process guide, which is on the Provincial Court website. And again, I can provide the link to that as well.
So the family law rules apply whether you're in a Superior Court or a Provincial Court. And the family law rules set out all the steps and where the need comes in. and what is specifically required in the way of documentation for every step in the family court process that the family law rules set out. Now all of the documents generally that you're going to need in a family law case you can find on the Ontario Court Forms website and that doesn't and that they're the same forms whether you're in Superior Court or the Ontario Court of Justice.
You can also pick up copies of these forms at Courthouse or you can download them from online and again I've got the link for that for you as well to share Heather. I'm also going to give a plug for another website that I really like called Steps to Justice. They have a website and I've got the link available.
And it was created by Community Legal Education Ontario. And it's an excellent source of information about how to deal with a family law claim in Ontario. They have a really, really good flowchart.
I was actually trying to figure out if I could upload and take a look at the flowchart while going through this process. Because the big meat of what we're going to be discussing today is what the steps are in the process. Yeah. But it's an interactive flowchart.
And it switches. whether you're the applicant or the respondent, and you can really end up going down a rabbit hole. So I'm sorry, people are just going to have to listen to me walk through and talk about this, but I would really strongly recommend that anybody that wants an overview about what the family court process is in Ontario, you can go to that flowchart on the Steps to Justice website. And I've actually got the link. And again, Heather, you can post it, which is the direct link to the flowcharts themselves.
What I really like about these flowcharts is they also include links to all the forms that are going to be required at each step and there are actually guided pathways that Steps to Justice provides on how to complete the form. So it's a really really good resource and helpful. There are other things you can look at as well. As I said the Ministry of the Attorney General has guides to procedure in both the Provincial Court and the Superior Court. I just don't find theirs user friendly as the Steps to Justice website is.
And that for me was just where I wanted to get started with, with an overview about the difference between family law and other types of civil law, where to go for the resources on a real deep dive on the processes, because we're just going to be barely able to skin the surface today. So if you're okay with that, then my next thing would be moving on to what the roadmap to family law case looks like, unless you got any questions you'd like to do now, or how would you like to go? But I was just going to add that it's a little bit of an eye opener, actually, when you mentioned that how family proceedings are not about punishment. Somebody did something wrong, and I...
I'm entitled to money for that. Yeah. The only reason I'm saying this is because I've heard of some quite contentious family lawsuits where the parties just go at it for years.
Well, they hate each other. Yeah, but it sounds like they're trying to punish each other. And I think that when you said, well, the family proceedings are not about punishment, it's really kind of like surprising to me.
You're talking about... the disintegration of a family right and family life yeah and there's normally a reason why the relationship has fallen apart um people do engage in the blame game like whose fault is it that the relationship has broken down yeah the way our family law matters are set up is that they are all specifically designed first of all if there are children yeah how do we set up the best life possible for the kids after their parents are no longer living together how are the children going to be financially supported where are the children going to live which parent is going to be making the decisions about those kids yeah um if there are no children involved or if there are children other issues are you If it's been a long-term relationship, there's property that's been accumulated. There's been debts that have been accumulated.
Right. There are rules on how to deal with it. And it's not like you're dealing at arm's length with a third party who you're thinking did something to you that you're entitled to damages for.
Right. The courts don't even take a look at punishing people. Courts are not going to care who was responsible for the relationship breaking down. I was going to say, more often than not, there's things that either side can say about what the other side did. The focus is how do we get these people to move forward?
I quite often as a family lawyer get hit with the question of saying, well, he left me. He committed adultery with somebody else. I want him to pay for that. That's right.
Guess what? It doesn't matter. The only thing that adultery does is it gives you grounds to start a divorce proceeding. If you're married, you might not even be married.
If you're in a common law relationship, back with the person. slept with somebody else if you're saying that's the reason for your relationship to end that other person is not going to get punished for doing that people come and go out of relationships we do it all the time over a half of relationships in Canada end in divorce or separation now on a regular ongoing basis yeah the court's not going to punish somebody for saying ah it's your fault that this family fell apart we're going to make you pay for it yeah it's just going to be okay this is no longer a functioning family unit yeah now where are we going to go What are your rights and obligations on a go-forward basis? What are the rights and obligations on the other side?