Ruling affirms couple who took boy into their home lack standing to seek child support
The Ontario Superior Court upheld a judge’s determination that two non-parties failed to show a settled intention to treat a boy they took into their home as their own child under s. 1 of Ontario’s Family Law Act, 1990 (FLA).
In Bowlby v. Oliver, 2025 ONSC 5669, Alex Bowlby was born in September 2006 and later went into the foster care of Paul and Laura Bowlby, who adopted him when he was around six years old.
When Alex was about 15½ years old, his relationship with his adoptive parents broke down. In May 2022, Alex started living with his girlfriend’s parents, Craig and Julie Oliver.
In July 2022, the Olivers applied for decision-making authority over Alex, as well as child support from the Bowlbys under the FLA.
In August 2022, on an urgent basis, Justice Baker of the Ontario Court of Justice granted the Olivers decision-making authority to enable Alex’s registration in a competitive baseball program.
In June 2024, Justice G.B. Edward of the Ontario Court of Justice ordered that:
The Bowlbys appealed the June 2024 order.
Birkin Culp, who acted for the Olivers relating to the application before Justice Edward, sought to act only for Alex because he had reached the age of majority. Thus, the Olivers lacked direct representation on the appeal.
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice dismissed the Olivers’ s. 33(2) application based on a lack of standing.
However, the court set aside the order appointing the Olivers as Alex’s litigation guardians upon finding an absence of jurisdiction to make that appointment without the Olivers qualifying as such under r. 7.02 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 194.
The court dismissed Alex’s motion to dismiss the appeal and cross-appeal as moot. The court clarified that its orders would not prevent Alex from applying for retroactive child support from the Bowlbys.
First, the court ruled that Justice Edward appropriately determined that the Olivers had failed to establish a settled intention to treat Alex as their own son.
The court noted that the cases cited by counsel failed to tackle the issue of whether the Olivers had standing, through their asserted settled intention to step in as Alex’s parents, to claim child support from the Bowlbys.
The court accepted that the Olivers allowed Alex to live with them, cared about him, and wished to assist him. However, the court said that the love, kindness, or charity the Olivers provided to Alex did not necessarily mean they could step in and earn recognition as his parents under the FLA.
Next, based on an examination of r. 7 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, the court held that Justice Edward lacked the jurisdiction to impose the role of litigation guardians on the Olivers.
The court explained that the judge could only appoint the Children’s Lawyer as Alex’s representative under r. 7.04 of the Rules of Civil Procedure if he wanted to maintain the child support claim on Alex’s behalf.
The court added that the legal doctrines of estoppel, approbation, and reprobation could not equip the judge with the jurisdiction to issue the order he did.
Lastly, on its face, the court acknowledged that the issues in the original matter might be moot because Alex had reached the age of majority.
The court noted that the judge at first instance should have dismissed the Olivers’ application and addressed the application costs in the ordinary course. However, the court pointed out that the Olivers had no counsel to represent them on this issue on appeal.
