Dad Loses Joint Custody, But Gets Access to Give Son Needed “Down-time”
In a case called Newman v. Nicholson, the parents of a 14-year old boy had been subject to a court order, granting them each joint custody. The boy lived in the primary care of his mother since he was 2 years old.
Over that period, the mother had done most of the work around attending to the boy’s needs: For example, she facilitated his involvement in highly-competitive Triple-A level hockey, as well as high performance athletic programs, hockey camps and high school sports.
In contrast, the father had been comparatively unreliable in meeting the boy’s needs, and sometimes had trouble getting him to school or sports functions on time. This was compounded by the fact that his driver’s license had been suspended by the Family Responsibility Office for non-payment of child support. His income had also dropped for unrelated reasons, and the mother claimed he had increased his consumption of alcohol. She also had concerns that the boy spent too much time playing video games while in the father’s care.
The mother applied for sole custody (but with generous access to the father), on the basis that there had been a significant change since the order had been made. She pointed out that while she had taken charge of attending to all the boy’s needs, the father had not even honoured his financial obligations as a parent. More troubling was the fact that the father deliberately ignored her emails and was unresponsive in his communication with her about the boy’s various existing health issues, some of which required monitoring.
The father wanted the joint custody to remain as-is.
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