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Canadian Court Upholds Family Court Damages Award for One Spouse?s Purely Psychological Abuse of the Other Spouse

By Janet Langjahr

Ontario Canada’s highest court has fired a shot which may be heard around the family law universe.

Common law Husband threatens and harasses common law Wife … with the intention of intimidating her into backing off on her claims for property division and alimony.

For example, Husband threatens to send intimate pictures of Wife to her grandmother.

And Husband paints their common law marriage as merely the business relationship of landlord and tenant.

And Husband sends Wife scary letters, including one referring to a bullet in her head.

Husband also engages in frivolous, but nonetheless expensive, litigation intended to wear Wife down financially.

Sound familiar? If you’ve spent any time in American family courts, it should.

Based on Husband’s pattern of conduct, the Canadian appellate court refused to be used by Husband.

The Court declined to hear Husband’s appeal, concluding that it is an “abuse of process”.

Allowing to stand a $250,000 judgment awarding Wife damages for Husband’s intentional infliction of mental and emotional suffering and reimbursement of her legal fees and costs.

This was the first Canadian case in which the Court compensated a spouse for purely psychological abuse suffered in the absence of physical abuse.

Husband is also being prosecuted for his alleged threats and extortion.

Read more in this Ottawa Citizen article: Court refuses to be pawn in divorce case.

Full post as published by Florida Divorce - Child Custody - Domestic Abuse Law on February 06, 2010 (boomark / email).