Follack v. Follack

2025 BCSC 1276 Follack v. Follack

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF BRITISH COLUMBIA Citation: Follack v. Follack, 2025 BCSC 1276 Date: 20250605 Docket: E2464131 Registry: Prince George Between: Ashley Brittney Follack Claimant And Justin Steve Follack Respondent Before: The Honourable Mr. Justice Baird Oral Reasons for Judgment Counsel for the Claimant: D. Lindsay Counsel for the Respondent: B. Noorduyn Place and Date of Hearing: Prince George, B.C. June 5, 2025 Place and Date of Judgment: Prince George, B.C. June 5, 2025

INTRODUCTION [1] In this family law case Ashley Brittney Follack, the claimant, seeks an interim order requiring Justin Steve Follack, the respondent, to pay her monthly child support for the two children of the marriage, namely Emma Ashley Follack, born January 19, 2019, and Jaxon Neal Follack, born April 20, 2022, commencing on August 1, 2022, which is when the parties separated. [2] The claimant also seeks an order under s. 7 of the Guidelines for the following special or extraordinary expenses: a) Daycare costs for the children; b) Uninsured medical and dental costs; c) Orthotics for Emma; d) Counselling for Emma; e) Reasonable expenses related to Emma's medical trips to BC Children's Hospital in Vancouver; and f) Other expenses as may be agreed on between the parties or determined by the court. [3] Finally, the claimant seeks an order of spousal support in accordance with the Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines commencing on June 1, 2025, without prejudice to her claim for retroactive support.

BACKGROUND [4] The parties started dating when they were in high school and lived together in a common law relationship starting in about 2015. They were married on August 21, 2017 and separated on August 1, 2022. The two children were born, as I have said, in 2019 and 2022 respectively, and are presently aged six and three. The date of separation was only three months or so after the younger child, Jaxon, was born. During the marriage the parties lived in Quesnel, BC. As I understand it, that is where both of them are from and where both sets of their parents live, as well. [5] On the basis of the affidavit evidence that I have read, when Jaxon arrived the claimant was already worried about the state of the parties' marriage, and she was doing what she could to salvage it. She did not succeed. The respondent left her and moved to the area of Vernon, BC where he had recently purchased a business called Vernon Motorsports Ltd. He did not consult with the claimant about this or seek her approval. He owns another business called Ruckus Mechanical, which is apparently headquartered in Quesnel. The respondent suggests in his sworn evidence that this company has not been terribly active recently, but he is planning to build it up again and redevelop its business. [6] The way in which the respondent has organised his economic life with his principal income earning businesses in Vernon

(which is slightly over 500 km from Quesnel) is not conducive to co-parenting, and unsurprisingly this has proved to be the case since the parties separated. I am satisfied on the evidence that the claimant has been doing most of the parenting while the respondent has been a part-timer since the day he left. In my assessment, he is, always has been, and will continue to be obligated to pay full-pull Guidelines support for both of his children. There is no set-off available to him under s. 9 of the Guidelines.

CHILD SUPPORT [7] The respondent recognises that he is obligated to pay child support in accordance with his properly calculated income. The problem, he says, is that the claimant has greatly over-estimated the amount of income that he has available to him to pay support, and she is asking him to pay more than is required or he can afford. His position set out in his deposition evidence seems to be that he has had to cut back on work and hire staff to cover his planned absences from Vernon so that he can spend more time with his children. He has suggested that the cost of travel to Quesnel may also limit the supply of money that he can access for support. [8] I find as a fact that the claimant is the primary parent of these children. They live with her for well over 60 percent of the time and always have done. As far as I can tell there has never been equal parenting time, and I doubt very much that the respondent's future parenting ambitions in that direction will ever take flight. He has made a new life for himself in Vernon, including the purchase of a home with rather a lopsided debt-equity ratio that he is going to have to work hard to pay off. He has a new partner who apparently lives with him there. He has completely reconfigured his life so that, in my view, co-parenting in Quesnel is a practical impossibility. [9] Somewhat to my surprise, the position taken by the

respondent before me today is that the correct income imputation for him would be the combination of the average income since separation declared in his T-1 personal income tax returns, and the pre-tax income of Ruckus Mechanical. Respondent's counsel has conceded this morning that to those sums must be added $28,800 per year in rental income. According to my calculations these combined amounts yield an average annual income since separation of $271,300. This amount includes the $128,700 in Ruckus Mechanical pre-tax income for 2022 set out in the company's financial statement for that year, inclusive of $64,793 of income derived from the disposal of property and equipment. I was not persuaded by the argument made this morning that this latter sum should not be included in the calculation of the respondent's income. [10] From the date of separation until January 2024 the respondent paid the claimant $2000 per month in child support. He paid nothing at all from January until August 2024, and since September 1, 2024 he has been paying $1000 per month. The claimant says, and by his position taken today the respondent obviously agrees, that the respondent has been underpaying child support throughout, and that he has much more money available to him to pay support than he has been letting on until now. [11] I will accept, for today's purposes only, the assumption urged upon me by

the respondent, by means of what I consider to be rather a vague letter from his accountant, that the present-day cash assets of Vernon Motorsports Ltd. are required for corporate spending in order keep the company going. It may be, in the course of this litigation, that this assumption will be proved wrong and that additional income should be imputed to the respondent. This will be revealed through the usual processes of document disclosure, discovery, and if necessary, trial. On an interim and without prejudice basis, however, I will go with the figures introduced and proposed this morning and impute to the respondent an annual income since separation of $271,300. [12] I should emphasise that the respondent's filed evidence on this application led me to suppose that he would be asking me to fix him with an income far smaller than this, and I am glad to see that he has come to a more reasonable position today. I will repeat what I said this morning that it would not be acceptable for him to earn less money because he planned to spend time travelling from Vernon, where he now lives, to Quesnel, where his children live. In my view this would be no part of a sustainable argument about his child support responsibilities. The claimant says, and I agree, that every aspect of the respondent's business and personal life has come from unilateral decisions that he made for no other

reason than to suit himself and satisfy his own desires. [13] As I have said, the respondent acquired and now operates a business located in Vernon, which is five and one-half hour's drive from Quesnel, where he and his family had always lived. He did this without consulting the claimant and by borrowing money secured against the former matrimonial home. Then he abandoned the family home and moved permanently to Vernon. There he has purchased an expensive and apparently spacious new home. The down payment of over $233,000 was made by means of a shareholder loan granted to him by Vernon Motorsports Ltd., which by the way, makes me wonder if the company accountant's view that every spare nickel is needed for operations can possibly be accurate. The respondent has started a new life with another woman and until recently he saw the children comparatively little. [14] He claims that since early-2024 he has been "reorienting" his focus on his children, and says in his filed material that his income in future may be limited because he wants to spend more time in Quesnel with the parties' children, and as I have said, because he has had to hire additional staff at both companies to cover for him in his absence. He says, in other words, that an increase in his parenting time will negatively impact the financial performance of both companies, and also that the expense of traveling back

and forth to Quesnel limits the amount of money that he has available to him to pay support. [15] I agree with the claimant that the circumstances as they exist now are completely the respondent's doing. It is no answer whatsoever to her claim for support that he has plans to limit his income so that he can travel to and from Quesnel and stay there for many weeks of the year. He has an obligation to earn as much income as is reasonably achievable and pay the support required having done so. It is perfectly clear that he has been underpaying for years, and I have heard no plausible excuse whatsoever for why he refused to pay anything at all for eight months in 2024. A substantial correction is required. [16] I hereby order the respondent to pay child support to the claimant in the monthly amount required by the Guidelines on his imputed income of $271,300 from August 1, 2022 to the present day, and on the first day of every month ahead unless this court orders or the parties agree otherwise. I hereby declare that there are arrears of child support which I have calculated and tabulated as follows: Dates Guidelines Amount Amount Paid Balance owing August 2022 $3590 $2000 $1590 September 2022 $3590 $2000 $1590 October 2022 $3590 $2000 $1590 November 2022 $3590 $2000 $1590 December 2022 $3590 $2000 $1590 January 2023 $3590 $2000 $1590 February 2023 $3590 $2000 $1590 March

2023 $3590 $2000 $1590 April 2023 $3590 $2000 $1590 May 2023 $3590 $2000 $1590 June 2023 $3590 $2000 $1590 July 2023 $3590 $2000 $1590 August 2023 $3590 $2000 $1590 September 2023 $3590 $2000 $1590 October 2023 $3590 $2000 $1590 November 2023 $3590 $2000 $1590 December 2023 $3590 $2000 $1590 January 2024 $3590 $2000 $1590 February 2024 $3590 $0 $3590 March 2024 $3590 $0 $3590 April 2024 $3590 $0 $3590 May 2024 $3590 $0 $3590 June 2024 $3590 $0 $3590 July 2024 $3590 $0 $3590 August 2024 $3590 $0 $3590 September 2024 $3590 $1000 $2590 October 2024 $3590 $1000 $2590 November 2024 $3590 $1000 $2590 December 2024 $3590 $1000 $2590 January 2025 $3590 $1000 $2590 February 2025 $3590 $1000 $2590 March 2025 $3590 $1000 $2590 April 2025 $3590 $1000 $2590 May 2025 $3590 $1000 $2590 June 2025 $3590 $1000 $2590

TOTAL ARREARS $79,650

SPECIAL EXPENSES [17] The special expenses claimed in the claimant's pleadings would appear to me to qualify under s. 7 of the Guidelines. I hereby order the parties to share those expenses in rough proportion to their respective incomes - $45,000 for the claimant and $271,300 for the respondent - meaning that the claimant must cover these expenses to the tune of 15 percent, the respondent 85 percent.

SPOUSAL SUPPORT [18] As I think I made reasonably clear this morning, I do not accept the respondent's argument that the claimant is underemployed and should be earning more. It lies ill in the mouth of a person who has abandoned his family to claim that his spouse is not working full-time when she has been left high and dry as the principal parent to a newborn and a toddler. I am satisfied that she is doing as much as she can in the circumstances, she is earning as much money as could reasonably be expected, and she is required, for the time being at least, to do no more. [19] Even before he left the claimant, the respondent was working out of town most of the time. As I have said, I am satisfied on the evidence that the claimant is and always has been the children's principal parent. I accept the claimant's evidence that this was the parties' mutually agreed approach to parenting: that the respondent should work out of town on high-paying jobs while the claimant stayed at home and looked after the house and children. The claimant's ability to support herself has been materially compromised by her role in this marriage, and the respondent's total evacuation from her life has left her in much diminished financial circumstances. [20] In my view the claimant to this point has done with her pharmacist's qualifications what her schedule permits given her full-time parenting

obligations. When the children are older, I have no doubt that she will become self-sufficient and no longer require spousal support, but right now she needs it, she is entitled to it, and the respondent should have been paying it since the very day that he left. I would also observe that if the claimant started working the sort of hours that the respondent seems to expect, much of her additional earnings would probably be spent on additional daycare expenses. [21] I hereby order the respondent to pay the claimant mid-range spousal support in accordance with the SSAGs which, given his imputed income of $271,300 and hers of $45,000, comes to the monthly amount of $4,144. The claimant has not asked for retroactive support today, but I will repeat now what I said this morning, that she has been fully entitled to a solid measure of support since separation, and the respondent so far has paid her nothing while he has reorganised his life to suit himself. He should confidently expect, eventually, to be ordered to pay a large amount in spousal maintenance arrears. From my present vantage, I do not see how there is any way around it. [22] The claimant is entitled to her costs on Scale B. "Baird J."