Child support litigation against a sperm donor in Canada

Here’s a modern-day family story from Canada… “Doctor sues gay friend for child support, 16 years after he first donated sperm to her” (Calgary Herald, October 28, 2016):

Ranson and Dr. Amie Cullimore met in medical school in 1991, court documents say. After they finished school, he moved to the U.S. and then Europe while she stayed in Canada. But in 2000 she called on him to fulfil a decades-old promise: donate his sperm so she could undergo IVF and become a mother. Eventually, she would have two babies using those embryos, both of whom are now teenagers.

After the second child was born in 2002, the pair signed an agreement giving her full custody, as well as power over education and health care. It said she “would not look to (Ranson) for any financial support.”

Cullimore makes just under $250,000 a year as a gynecologist, obstetrician and university professor, the documents show, while Ranson made just under CAD$280,000 in his most recent post with the World Bank in Europe.

Unlike in some U.S. states (see Real World Divorce for which ones) it seems that the plaintiff cannot get paid retroactively for the full 16 years:

If Cullimore is successful in her case, Ranson will be on the hook for four years of retroactive child support, since 2012, as well as other expenses, including post-secondary education.

Canadian family law offers unlimited child support revenue when a sufficiently high-income defendant can be sued. The cash keeps flowing until a child is completely out of college, enabling a winner parent to profit from previous custody of a “child” aged 25 or even older (this seems to be one of those issues that hits appeals courts in Canada from time to time). Let’s see how it works out here. Dr. Cullimore can collect CAD$46,092 per year tax-free from Ranson. If she had used sperm from two different men, each with the same income as her current defendant, she would get $59,352 per year. Median individual income in Canada right now is about $33,000 per year (Statistics Canada), but that’s pre-tax. Statistics Canada says that average income for a college graduate, after two years on the job, is $45,000 per year pre-tax (source). Statistics Canada says that the median 20-year pre-tax earnings for a women with a Bachelor’s degree is $972,500 (report). That’s $48,625 per year, slightly higher than Dr. Cullimore’s potential revenue, but considering the pre-tax/post-tax difference, Dr. Cullimore’s kids are definitely worth more than the average Canadian woman’s college degree and 40 hours/week of work.

Even if we may differ with Canadians over the level of welcome given to Syrian immigrants, one thing that we can share is child support litigation strategy. The plaintiff here has a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old, both presumably parked most of the time in a taxpayer-funded public school:

“The Applicant Mother has tried to pay for all activities, including ongoing child-care costs of over $800 per month as she works 24-hour shifts (as a medical doctor [earning $250,000 per year]), but she can no longer afford to do so.”