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Family - Spousal Support . Rathee v. Rathee [SSAGs]
In Rathee v. Rathee (Ont CA, 2024) the Ontario Court of Appeal allowed a family law appeal, this from a JR, this against a family arbitration regarding spousal support.
Here the court considers the federal SSAGs ('Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines'):[18] The core reason advanced by the appeal judge for overturning the arbitral award was that the arbitrator did not pay proper attention to, and apply, the Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines (“SSAGs”)[1] developed by the federal Department of Justice and widely used throughout the family law community, including by lawyers and judges. ....
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[24] The overarching problem with the appeal judge’s reasons is that he ignored the clear direction of the SSAGs, as highlighted by this court in Halliwell v. Halliwell, 2017 ONCA 349, at para. 115, that support entitlement considerations inform the proper application of the SSAGs formula. In assessing the wife’s spousal support entitlement, he ignored that the wife entered the marriage with a net worth of approximately $95,000 and left it with a net worth of over $3.5 million. He also gave no credit for the eight and a half years of rent-free occupation of the jointly-owned matrimonial home that the husband provided the wife post-separation but before the parties resorted to arbitration and, ultimately, the courts.
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[32] In McKinnon v. McKinnon, 2018 ONCA 596, van Rensburg J.A. stated at para. 24:The SSAGs are the presumptive starting point for awarding support. Any departure from them requires adequate explanation: Slongo v. Slongo, 2017 ONCA 272 at paras. 105 and 106. [33] In Slongo v. Slongo, 2017 ONCA 272, Simmons J.A. explained the rationale for this requirement, at para. 105: “without [the SSAGs], it is very difficult to establish a principled basis for arriving at a figure for spousal support.”
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