Month: June 2011

The Elgners separated in 2007 after 33 years of marriage.  Their children were grown.  They were successful and  had accumulated a lot of assets over their marriage.

The former couple gained notoriety in 2009 when Justice Greer made the highest temporary spousal support order in Ontario.  The Court ordered the husband to pay the wife $110,000 per month, plus retroactive spousal support of $3,360,000 for the two years preceding the order.  That’s a lot of money.

Since the temporary support order of Greer, the husband has lost 3 separate appeals stemming from the same order. The procedural issues in the husband’s appeals have taken on their own life. The husband has argued that he has an automatic right under Canada’s Divorce Act to appeal any support order, temporary or final, made under the authority of that Act.  The husband pursued that argument despite the prevailing judicial authority in Ontario, that the appeal of temporary orders (whether made under the federal Divorce Act or the provincial Family Law Act) required leave from the Divisional Court.  The test for leave is an issue of public importancerounded on either the principle of public importance or conflicting decisions.

A single judge of the Divisional Court refused the husband’s first appeal because he failed to establish that th importance of the appeal was a public one that transcended the issues between the parties.  was a dismissed because he failed to obtain leave to appeal a temporary order.  He was unable to pursued the appeal court that the matter of the appear went beyond the parties’ immediate interests, an Despite well established case law that interi

He first appealed to single judge of the

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