The Plaintiff father applied for relief relating to child support payments, arrears and parenting arrangements. The Defendant mother responded with her own Application and cross-Application concerning child support enforcement and a proposed change to the children’s school.

The parties had participated in Early Intervention Case Conferences (“EICCs”), where they reached agreements on parenting and their ongoing child support incomes. A procedural issue arose when the mother’s counsel invoked Rule 9.4(2)(c) to submit draft Consent Orders to the EICC Justice without obtaining the father’s approval, despite him being self-represented. Thompson J. found that, given the requirement of procedural fairness, Rule 9.4(2)(c) only applied to “pronounced” Judgments and not to Consent Orders resulting from negotiated agreements such as those reached in an EICC. Its improper use in this context denied the self-represented party the opportunity to confirm that agreed upon terms are reflected in the draft Consent Orders. Justice Thompson directed that going forward, Rule 9.4(2)(c) shall not be invoked against a self-represented party unless ordered by the Court.

Instead, when parties are self-represented, Rule 9.2(2)(b) applies to pronounced Judgments, and Rule 3.35 applies to Consent Orders, unless the Court orders otherwise. Lastly, pursuant to Rule 9.8, the party or counsel who prepared the Judgment is obligated to serve a copy of the filed Order on all other parties, including self-represented individuals.

The Court also addressed the mother’s attempt to rely on Rule 9.13(a) to vary the EICC child support agreement before it was entered as a Court Order. The Court clarified that Rule 9.13(a) is similarly restricted to pronounced Judgments or Orders and cannot be used to vary a negotiated agreement recorded in an EICC report. Further, Rule 9.16 requires an application pursuant to Rule 9.13 to be decided by the Judge who granted the original Judgment, unless the Court orders otherwise. Since an EICC Justice was disqualified from hearing any interlocutory Application or Trial in the same matter, Rule 9.13(a) could not apply to the EICC agreement.

Lastly, Thompson J. stated that Courts have considerable discretion in setting reasonable and proper Costs pursuant to Rules 10.29, 10.31 and 10.33. Although the successful party is presumptively entitled to Costs, for self-represented litigants, the ordinary objective of indemnification is not achieved as they do not incur legal fees. Thus, they generally should not receive Costs beyond disbursements unless policy justifications apply. Given the mixed success in both the father and mother’s Applications, both parties were to bear their own costs.