Judge orders Feuding Couple to write book reports
A Toronto-area couple is embroiled in a typically miserable divorce.
In their latest court clash, the wife tried to win over her former husband’s share of the proceeds from the matrimonial home and stop him from seeing their 11-year-old twins. The husband, in turn, wanted his former wife to pay him $12,000 and accused her of already blocking his access to the children.
The judge, it seems, is fed up with it all, and responded to the latest requests with a unique order that family-law specialists said yesterday is well-intentioned, but of questionable legality. The pair must each read three books on parenting and divorce, and offer proof they did so at their next court appearance, Justice David Price ruled this month.
He directed them to produce a single-page essay on each book that details “one insight that they have gained from it and one strategy, if any, they are prepared to adopt based on it.”
“This may improve their ability to communicate and resolve some of the issues that are still troubling them,” Justice Price said.
Neither party, both of whom are representing themselves in court, could be reached for comment.
But Georgina Carson, chair of Ontario Bar Association’s family law section, said yesterday she has never heard of parents being assigned homework or anything like it, and is not sure how useful it would be.
Judges will sometimes recommend that parties in family-law cases take parenting courses, and occasionally even order they do so, she said. Under a principle known as parens patriae, they have fairly wide scope to take action in the interests of children, the lawyer said.
“That gives them a wide-ranging authority to make orders that perhaps parents haven’t even asked for, but I didn’t know it actually extended to literature and a book list,” Ms. Carson said. “It can’t hurt. [But] I’m dubious about the long-term salutary effect.”
Judges these days often try to deal directly with relationship troubles that affect children and in doing so Justice Price’s heart would appear to have been in the right place, said Tom Dart, a prominent family-law lawyer in Barrie, Ont. “[But] I am not sure if he had the legal authority to make such an order,” he said. “It’s almost like ordering people to behave. If only it were that easy … We know that even if they do what he has ordered, they may not get it, as too often they are unable to recognize that their conduct is harmful to their children.”
The couple, whose names are being withheld to save embarrassment for the children, were married in 1998 and separated eight years later.
The mother, 41, has custody of the twins, but a judge had ordered that her former husband, 43, be allowed to see them once a week and on alternate weekends. As detailed in Justice Price’s ruling, however, the father says he has been repeatedly denied access visits, and the mother said his behaviour has made the children reluctant to see him. She applied to the court to have his access stopped; his application requested an end to her sole custody of the children. He also asked that she be prevented from taking them to an abused-children’s group.
They also made opposing financial claims. Most of their requests were denied or postponed, although the mother was instructed to provide make-up days for the lost access visits.
The reading material ordered by the judge included Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone, Yulia Patton and Sheila Heen; Parenting from the Inside Out by Yulia J. Siegel and Mary Hartzell; and Parenting After Divorce, by Philip M. Stahl.
He also instructed that they seek counselling on how to communicate with each other better, and that the father undergo an assessment for alcohol and drug dependency.
National Post