Law Times

LAW TIMES / FEBRUARY 1, 2010 Send button easy to hit Continued from page 8 Bala does believe in the benefits of online communication in the visitation process. He says that while it's not the same as an in-person visit, "it can certainly be valuable in cases where people are further apart." He adds that the utility of these tools depends on the age of the children involved, especially since they become more adept with technology as they reach their teens. "The other thing is that as children age, access increasingly occurs on their terms," he says. "So if you have a five-year-old child, you can say, 'This is the order,' and one of the things about the order if the child is younger is that the electronic communication has to be facilitated by an adult." Bala suggests Canadian courts have already accepted online com- munication as a means of mitigating the effects of a long-distance parent-child relationship. "Having said that, I don't think that anyone, and certainly no judge would suggest, that electronic com- munication would replace visits but it would supplement them. It might make a move that in the past would have been considered unacceptable perhaps acceptable now," he says. Bala highlights how important in-person communication is for the development of parent-child relationships. A lot of human inter- action is non-verbal, he notes, adding that "family life is one of those things that requires physical presence." Georgina Carson, chairwoman of the Ontario Bar Association's family law section, agrees that online visitation should never replace in-person access and that it should primarily be used to enhance communication between visits. She points out that many other online tools are now available to help manage children's schedules with both of their parents. E-mail, for example, has helped many ex-spouses communicate with each other in a more productive and less combative manner. Still, Carson urges families involved in a spilt to tread lightly in the world of online communications. "I would say that e-mail and texting is double-edged," says Car- son. "On the one hand, it's reducing in-person and telephone con- flict. But the problem is that [the] send button is just a little too easy to press. I think sometimes people can engage in an e-mail war that can heighten the combativeness of a separation." LT Case pieced together Continued from page 8 estate; in fact, all of the evidence is to the contrary," the claim alleges. None of the allegations have been proven in court, and Law Times' attempts to obtain com- ment on the case from coun- sel for Jacques and Canada Trust were unsuccessful. But in a release outlining the allega- tions in the statement of claim, Jacques' daughter Nancy Dasent maintained Ontario's succes- sion duty act remains applicable to individuals who died before it was repealed in 1979. That could mean Waterloo Trust is prohibited from destroying estate records if the assets are valued at more than $50,000 without written consent from the minister of revenue. Dasent said Canada Trust claimed it didn't have records of the Nor- man Hipel estate. "In the face of this, we have taken two wills of my grand- parents, an obituary of Norman Hipel, a few scraps of paper, and a piece of correspondence and turned them into 29 boxes of documents to support this law- suit," said Dasent. Canada Trust sought to have the claim dismissed, but the Superior Court rejected that motion last January. "There is no evidence that Norma received notification of her entitlement to share in Norman's estate," wrote Justice Gerald Taylor in his endorse- ment on that motion. "There is no evidence that Norma received her share of Norman's estate. Therefore, I do not think it appropriate to con- clude that she did in fact receive notification of her entitlement and that she received her entitle- ment based on her failure to provide an affidavit for use on the present motion." The Record newspaper report- ed that the father's estate, worth $1.2 million, agreed to compen- sate Jacques with $300,000 and his $260,000 home. The trial involving Canada Trust got underway in early December and continued in January. The Record reported that Canada Trust's counsel, Ross Earnshaw of Gowling Laf- leur Henderson LLP, said in his opening address that there is "circumstantial evidence" that Jacques received her inheritance around 1966. It was also at that time, the newspaper reported, that a fire ruined her family's home and small business. Canada Trust also argued through Earnshaw that Jacques waited too long to make a claim against her father's estate. The newspaper reported that Jacques signed documents in 1955 and 1956 showing she knew about parts of her father's will. In later testimony, the newspaper noted, Jacques claimed her signature had been forged. LT Untitled-1 1www.lawtimesnews.com 5/19/09 11:47:00 AM Untitled-1 1 1/27/10 4:47:30 PM Trust [ Aleks Mladenovic | FOCUS PAGE 11 What do more than 3,000 Canadian law fi rms have in common? They have all entrusted DIVORCEmate One to process their family law practice needs, using Forms One for intricate court forms, Precedents One for comprehensive domestic contracts and Tools One for sophisticated fi nancial, guideline and cash fl ow anaylsis. Visit www.divorcemate.com today for your 30-day trial version of DIVORCEmate One! 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