Other than mediation and litigation, other methods that are available to settle the outstanding issues are neutral evaluation, arbitration and mediation/arbitration. Neutral evaluation is a process whereby the spouses jointly retain a professional evaluator, who is usually an experienced family lawyer, to provide a formal opinion of the probable outcome of the issues presented to the evaluator. This process usually involves the participation of the spouses and their lawyers. The lawyers present the evaluator with a brief that consists of each spouse’s position, the relevant evidence and the legal authorities that he or she relies on. The purpose of neutral evaluation is to assist the spouses and their lawyers to overcome an issue that prevents the case from moving forward. For example, one spouse may believe that spousal support should be paid for a period of no more than five years, while the other spouse believes that spousal support payments should not end. In neutral evaluation, unlike mediation, the evaluator is specifically retained to provide an opinion and the reasons for that opinion.

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice was asked to address this very question in the September 30, 2003 case of Moffatt v. Moffatt. After the couple separated in 1997, they entered into a separation agreement that placed their two children with the mother. The father was a teacher and earned $63,000 per year. In June 2001, he took advantage of a temporary window of opportunity and chose to take early retirement. He accepted the converted value of his teachers’ pension in the sum of $526,026.63 and left the workforce.

Mr. Justice Campbell decided that the father, by choice, had become intentionally under-employed as described in section 19 of the Child Support Guidelines. The court decided that the father made a decision to benefit himself and himself only. Because the father was only 54 years old when he took early retirement, and because he had an ongoing obligation to his two children, his decision had a significant negative impact on his two children.

The father was ordered to pay child support for his children in the amount of $929 per month based upon an attributed income of $70,200 per year that would continue up to the date when he otherwise would have been entitled to retire.

Maybe.

On December 17, 2004, in the Ontario case of Warnica v. Gering, Mr. Justice Timms dismissed Christopher Warnica’s claim for shared joint custody of a pet dog named Tuxedo. In that case, the judge stated that courts should not be in the business of making custody orders for pets. Although the judge acknowledged that pets are of great importance to human beings, Mr. Justice Timms stated that some people go to extraordinary lengths to preserve that relationship. That is why Mr. Justice Timms ultimately ended Mr. Warnica’s case.

As for pet support, in the Alberta case of Boschee v. Duncan, [2004] A.J. 677, in addition to seeking $1,500 per month in spousal support, the wife claimed $200 per month to support her husband’s St. Bernard dog. The wife argued that she required pet support to cover the veterinary costs and the costs of feeding and caring for the dog after her husband left the dog in her care. The court found that a St. Bernard dog costs more to maintain and feed than the usual smaller variety. The judge hearing this case ruled that $200 per month was a reasonable sum to compensate the wife for the time and expense required to look after her husband’s dog and ordered him to pay pet support.