MacLean Law’s Winning Family Law Appeals lawyers know that winning at a family law trial is critical and that appeals from such family law wins are not a “redo” of what was decided by the trial judge where the loser gets to try gain afresh. This means putting your best foot forward at trial and hiring winning BC family trial lawyers who win trials routinely is critical for your family law case’s success. Fraser Maclean and Lorne MacLean KC handle multimillion dollar appeals and have a record for being Winning Family Law Appeals Lawyers. Our wins make front page news across Canada and internationally.
So often, self represented parties try to save money doing a BC family law case themselves with disastrous results. Once the self represented parties lose they think they can appeal to try to ” redo” their mistakes. The answer is mostly and properly “no you cannot redo your family law case”.
Fraser MacLean Winning Family Law Lawyer
Tel: 604 602 9000
The important lesson is that you need to hire the “best Vancouver family law lawyers” like those at MacLean Law right at the start of your Vancouver family law separation.
Our Winning Vancouver Family Law Lawyers have multiple wins in the BC Court of Appeal and Supreme Court of Canada such as Young v Young, the leading case on child parenting ” maximum contact” Leskun v Leskun, the leading case on “spousal support and misconduct” where a very low amount of spousal support of only $2250 after a very long marriage from our high earning client was awarded, Lightle v Kotar, the leading case on stock broker’s books of business and Devathasan, an appeal dismissal from the the highest spousal and child support awards of over $100,000, the leading case on highest lump sum spousal in the million’s, the leading special costs case for misconduct at $1,500,000 and more. Our Mandarin Chinese appeal team has also set BC Appeal Court new law in bigamous marriages precedents.
Vancouver Family Law Appeals Lawyers Tel: 604 602 9000
In the new 2024 BCCA decision of Rong v Tang the BCCA held as follows:
[22] As this Court recently stated in Naimi v. Yunusova, 2023 BCCA 124:
[28] Appeal courts must apply a highly deferential standard of review to all family law matters, including issues of property division. We may intervene only where there is a material error, a serious misapprehension of the evidence, or an error of law: Hickey v. Hickey, [1999] 2 S.C.R. 518 at para. 12, 1999 CanLII 691.
[29] Our role is not to re-do the work of the trial judge by allowing parties to reargue the case but to correct errors. This strict and limited scope is necessary to promote finality in the resolution of parties’ issues, to uphold public confidence in the judicial process and to ground the proper administration of justice: Barendregt v. Grebliunas, 2022 SCC 22 at paras. 100–104. It recognizes that the trial judge is in “an advantageous position when it comes to assessing and weighing vast quantities of evidence”, and it is “not the role of appellate courts to second-guess the weight to be assigned to … evidence … [nor] to interfere with a factual conclusion that it disagrees with where such disagreement stems from a difference of opinion”: Housen v. Nikolaisen, 2002 SCC 33 at para. 22–23.
[30] In application, this means that deference is given to the findings and conclusions of the trial judge, except where there is an error of law or a palpable and overriding error of fact. Palpable means the error is obvious and overriding means that it goes to the core of the outcome of the case. Both inferences of fact and findings of fact are subject to this standard. Put another way, we will not interfere where there is some evidence upon which the judge could have relied to come to their decision: Housen at paras. 1, 8, 10, 19, and 36.
[31] A high standard also applies to the review of a judge’s discretionary decision. An appeal court will defer to the judge’s exercise of their discretion except where they have made an error in principle, or made a palpable error such as failing to consider relevant circumstances or misconceiving the evidence, or the decision is so clearly wrong that permitting the order to stand would work an injustice: British Columbia (Minister of Forests) v. Okanagan Indian Band, 2003 SCC 71 at para. 43; Penner v. Niagara (Regional Police Services Board), 2013 SCC 19 at para. 27.
[23] The following observation in Naimi also applies on this appeal:
[32] Mr. Naimi misunderstands the role of this Court. His appeal is an impermissible “second kick at the can”: Barendregt at para. 39. He repeats arguments made below and attempts to re-litigate the factual findings of the trial judge, who had the benefit of observing the parties and receiving the evidence first-hand. Such an approach is not consonant with the strict standard of review this Court must apply.
[Emphasis added.
Vancouver Winning Family Law Appeals Lawyers
Many times our Vancouver Winning Family Law Appeals Lawyers need to deal with fresh evidence on a Vancouver family law appeal but the test is strict:
[65] The test to determine whether additional (or “fresh”) evidence should be admitted on appeal when adduced for the purpose of reviewing the decision below is set out in Palmer v. The Queen, [1980] 1 S.C.R. 759 at p. 775, as follows:
(1) The evidence should generally not be admitted if, by due diligence, it could have been adduced at trial…
(2) The evidence must be relevant in the sense that it bears upon a decisive or potentially decisive issue in the trial.
(3) The evidence must be credible in the sense that it is reasonably capable of belief, and
(4) It must be such that if believed it could reasonably, when taken with the other evidence adduced at trial, be expected to have affected the result.
Best Vancouver Family Law Lawyers Help You Win Appeals Tel: 604 602 9000
Our Winning Family Law Appeals Lawyers can help you prepare properly for trial so you don’t lose and have to appeal the loss. We will also help you oppose Family Law Appeals when you win at trial. Contact Fraser MacLean Winning Family Law Lawyer to help increase your chances of family law dispute success. Contact us to get on the right path.
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