Is there any case law where a step-mother’s income is not in evidence to determine child support payable by the mother?
British Columbia, Canada
The following excerpt is from E.M.L.F. v. S.L.S., 2009 BCSC 1242 (CanLII):
In Hagen v. Muir, [1999] B.C.J. no. 1458, B.M. Davies J. faced a similar situation where he was deciding the child support payable by a stepmother where the mother’s current income was not in evidence, but she had been paying an amount that “may well” be insufficient. Davies J. reduced the stepparent’s obligation only by the actual amount that the mother was paying and commented that his order might have to be revisited if evidence of the mother’s income became available. While that approach may seem to the defendant to be inequitable, in that it removes the incentive for the plaintiff custodial parent to be proactive in pursuing the father to determine his full legal duty, it would be inappropriate for several reasons to impute a higher child support payment to the father and reduce the defendant’s obligation commensurately.
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