Author: Steve Benmor, Benmor Family Law Group
The Ontario Superior Court’s decision in Shatilla v. Sorichetti, 2025 ONSC 6339 offers a clear and forceful reminder that even the most carefully negotiated “full and final” minutes of settlement cannot permanently waive a child’s right to support or insulate child support from judicial review.
The case also sends a cautionary message to family-law practitioners about the growing use of liquidated damages clauses designed to deter future litigation — particularly where those clauses operate, in effect, to penalize a parent for seeking to collect child support.
In Shatilla v. Sorichetti, the parties cohabited from 2000 to 2009 and have three children, all now over the age of majority. By the time they executed final minutes of settlement in August 2020, they had been engaged in intermittent litigation for nearly a decade. The minutes were expressly framed as a “full and final” resolution of all financial issues and were incorporated into a final consent order of Justice Chozik on September 11, 2020. Among other things, the minutes provided that:
- No Table child support would be payable by either party for any of the children;
- The parties would share certain section 7 expenses equally, subject to a detailed dispute-resolution process;
- The parties released each other from all legal claims, and
- Any breach of the minutes — including commencing further litigation — would trigger $20,000 in liquidated damages payable before any proceedings could be started.
Four years later, the mother brought a Motion to Change proceeding alleging a material change in circumstances arising from changes in the children’s residences and seeking child support and section 7 expenses. The father argued that the mother was barred from proceeding because the minutes were non-reviewable and represented a final bargain struck with independent legal advice after extensive negotiations.
The court rejected that position.
Relying on section 56(1.1) of the Family Law Act and longstanding case-law, the court reaffirmed that courts may disregard contractual provisions respecting child support where they are unreasonable, regardless of how carefully negotiated they may appear. The minutes were silent on the parties’ incomes and did not explain how a complete waiver of child support aligned with the Child Support Guidelines. While the agreement may have reflected the parenting arrangements at the time, it failed to anchor the waiver to any objective financial framework. In the court’s words, the provision releasing both parties from any obligation to pay child support was unreasonable.
At the heart of the decision is a restatement of the foundational principles from DBS v SRG, 2006 SCC 37:
- Child support is the right of the child, not the parents;
- That right survives the breakdown of the parents’ relationship;
- Support should, as much as possible, preserve the child’s standard of living; and
- The amount of support must reflect the payor’s income.
Against that backdrop, the court found that the parties’ attempt to permanently waive child support — without reference to income, guidelines, or future contingencies — could not stand. Importantly, the court also found that a material change in circumstances had occurred when one of the children changed residence to live full-time with the mother — an outcome neither party anticipated at the time of settlement.
Equally significant is the court’s treatment of the $20,000 liquidated damages clause, which purported to require payment before any further litigation could be commenced, including proceedings relating to child support. The court had little difficulty concluding that this clause was unenforceable. While acknowledging that the clause was intended to discourage further financial litigation, the court held that it crossed a critical line: it operated as a penalty against a party seeking to enforce child support obligations.
That result was impermissible. As the court put it, a clause that effectively punishes a parent for pursuing child support — by imposing a substantial financial barrier to court access — is unreasonable and contrary to public policy. Private agreements cannot be used to contract out of the court’s supervisory role over child support, nor can they chill the enforcement of a child’s statutory rights.
The court’s decision was not a wholesale rejection of the minutes. Notably, it enforced the agreed-upon process for resolving disputed section 7 expenses, barring the mother from advancing those claims because she failed to follow the contractual procedure she had agreed to. This distinction matters.
Shatilla v. Sorichetti does not undermine negotiated dispute-resolution mechanisms or finality in family-law settlements generally. What it makes clear is that finality has limits, and those limits are reached when agreements attempt to:
- Permanently waive child support;
- Prevent future review of support obligations; or
- Penalize access to the court on child-support issues.
Shatilla v. Sorichetti is a careful, principled decision that reinforces a core truth of family law: parents may settle their own financial disputes, but they cannot bargain away a child’s right to support —or erect financial barriers to its enforcement. For lawyers, mediators, and judges alike, the case serves as a timely reminder that while settlement is encouraged, the court remains the ultimate guardian of children’s economic interests, regardless of how final an agreement may appear.
