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Family - Interlocutory. Trop v. Trop [compliance with interim orders]
In Trop v. Trop (Ont CA, 2024) the Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed a motion for a stay of an interlocutory order for an 'updated financial statement'.
Here the court makes an important point regarding attornment:[7] First, compliance with court orders in the face of an ongoing jurisdictional challenge is not treated as attornment: see: Yaiguaje v. Chevron Corporation, 2014 ONCA 40, 62 C.P.C. (7th) 368, at para. 11, leave to appeal dismissed, [2018] S.C.C.A. No. 255. A party must take a voluntary step to indicate attornment to the jurisdiction: Sakab Saudi Holding Company v. Al Jabri, 2021 ONCA 548, at para. 34.
[8] Second, if Mr. Trop’s delivery of an Answer and Financial Statement is not attornment to Ontario’s jurisdiction, it is difficult to imagine that his compliance with an order to produce an updated version of the financial statement that he has already produced will be separately treated as attornment. The delivery of pleadings and productions to facilitate the efficient exchange of information in which a party clearly raises the issue of jurisdiction has not generally, without more, been treated as attornment: see, for example: BTR Global Opportunity Trading Limited v. RBC Dexia Investor Services Trust, 2011 ONCA 620, at para. 31; Van Damme v. Gelber, 2013 ONCA 388, 115 O.R. (3d) 470, at paras. 22, 23, leave to appeal refused, [2013] S.C.C.A. No. 342; Sakab Saudi Holding Company, at paras. 27-29.
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[10] Ms. Trop is entitled to financial disclosure notwithstanding the dispute over the court’s jurisdiction. As this court stated in Husid v. Daviau, 2012 ONCA 469, at para. 20, interim orders can be made without prejudice to a party’s right to dispute jurisdiction:[The moving party] argues that he could not make the motion in the court below because that would amount to attorning to the court’s jurisdiction, the very matter he contests by way of the main appeal. I do not accept this argument. There are a number of access orders in place already. I understand that they were made without prejudice to the father’s right to maintain that he did not attorn to the court’s jurisdiction. If the existing access orders could be made on that basis, I see no reason why the present motion could not also be made on the same basis.
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