RAILTON v RAILTON

The Applicant sought permission to appeal a Court of King’s Bench decision that dismissed three former appeals arising from a parenting dispute. The dispute concerned whether the Respondent should have primary parenting and ultimate decision-making authority, and whether the Applicant’s parenting time should remain supervised.

The three former appeals arose from an Interim Parenting Order requiring supervised parenting pending Trial, the dismissal of the Applicant’s Rule 9.13 Application to adduce additional evidence, and the Trial decision granting the Respondent primary parenting and ultimate decision-making authority.

On the Application for permission to appeal, Strekaf J.A. confirmed that, under Rule 14.5, permission was required for a further appeal from the Court of King’s Bench sitting as an Appeal Court. Permission would only be granted where the proposed appeal raised a serious issue of general importance with a reasonable chance of success.

With respect to Rule 9.13, Strekaf J.A. held that the Chambers Justice properly upheld the Trial Judge’s refusal to admit both pre- and post-Trial evidence. The pre-Trial evidence was rejected for lack of due diligence, and the post-Trial evidence was rejected because it would not have affected the outcome.

The Court found no error in the Chambers Justice’s review of the Trial decision, including with respect to the legal analysis, procedural fairness, or reasonable apprehension of bias. The Applicant failed to demonstrate that the proposed appeal raised a serious issue of general importance with a reasonable chance of success.

Permission to appeal was denied.