The Law of Costs Post-Beaver - Paper Presented at the Ontario Bar Association's Institute 2020

The case of Beaver v. Hill has attracted the attention of the family law bar mostly as a result of the novel constitutional claim advanced by the Respondent, Kenneth Hill, who claims an exemption under s. 35 of the The Constitution Act, 1982 from the obligation to pay support for his child pursuant to Ontario family law statutes of general application. However, the case has also produced an important appellate decision on costs in family law matters.  Scott Byers, partner and family law expert at Progressive Barristers, was co-counsel for Ms. Beaver in the litigation giving rise to this decision. A paper he co-authored with Joanna Radbord on the Court of Appeal’s troubling approach to the issue of costs was presented at the 2020 Ontario Bar Association Institute on February 7, 2020. The published paper is available to subscribers to the Ontario Family Law Reporter (J. Radbord and S. Byers, “The Law of Costs Post-Beaver” (2020) 33(9) O.F.L.R. 105).