The Ontario Superior Court of Justice recently issued a ruling in a family law dispute that centered on the balance between child safety investigations and the rights of a parent to maintain an established relationship with their children1. Justice Robert B. Reid presided over the matter of DeRocco v Chiocchio, 2025 ONSC 7055 (CanLII), which involved a father’s legal battle to reinstate an equal parenting arrangement that had been suspended for more than a year following an injury to his stepchild. The decision serves as a detailed look into how the court handles temporary orders and the criteria required to return to a previous status quo once safety concerns have been addressed by provincial authorities.
The history of the case began several years ago when Robert DeRocco and Kelsey Chiocchio, the parents of two children now aged six and five, separated in December 2020. Following their separation, the parties engaged in negotiations and eventually signed a formal agreement known as a “Minutes of Settlement” in September 2022. This agreement was comprehensive, establishing that the parents would share joint decision-making responsibility for their children. They also agreed to a specific time-sharing rotation commonly known as a 2-2-3 schedule2, which ensured that the children spent equal time with both their mother and their father. This arrangement was legally solidified by a court order issued by Justice Gregson on September 13, 2022.
In the years following their separation, both parents moved forward with their personal lives and established new family units. Ms. Chiocchio entered a common-law relationship in March 2023 with a partner who had two children of his own. Similarly, Mr. DeRocco began a new relationship in December 2023 and was married in July 2024. His new spouse also had two children. Interestingly, the biological children of Mr. DeRocco and Ms. Chiocchio attended the same elementary school as the children of Mr. DeRocco’s new spouse, creating a deeply interconnected family environment. For a significant period, the equal parenting schedule functioned without incident, providing the children with stability and regular access to both of their parents and their respective new families.
The stability of this arrangement was abruptly interrupted on May 8, 2024. On that date, Mr. DeRocco’s youngest stepchild, who was only three years old at the time, suffered serious head injuries while under Mr. DeRocco’s care. According to the court records, the child was reported to have fallen out of a bed, but medical and investigative authorities were initially unable to confirm exactly how the injuries occurred. Given the severity of the situation, the matter was reported to the Niagara Regional Police Service and Family and Children’s Services Niagara, also known as FACS. Both organizations launched formal investigations to determine if any foul play or negligence was involved.
In response to the incident and the ongoing investigations, Ms. Chiocchio initiated legal proceedings to change the existing parenting order. On July 12, 2024, Justice Ramsay issued a temporary order that significantly altered the lives of the children. The court granted Ms. Chiocchio sole decision-making authority and primary residence of the children, effectively stripping Mr. DeRocco of his equal parenting time. Under this order, any time Mr. DeRocco spent with his children was left entirely to the discretion of Ms. Chiocchio. At the time this order was made, Mr. DeRocco was present in court but had not filed full responding materials. Both parents appeared to be representing themselves without lawyers during that specific appearance. Justice Ramsay noted in the endorsement that this arrangement was intended to be a safety plan specifically for the short term while the investigations were pending.
The transition to this new arrangement proved difficult for the father. Ms. Chiocchio did not permit any in-person parenting time, leading to further legal intervention. On November 15, 2024, the matter came before Justice McKenzie. While the court felt it was premature to make a final decision because third party records from the investigations had not yet been produced, a temporary consent order was established. This order allowed Mr. DeRocco to have supervised parenting time at the Pathstone Supervised Parenting Time program for two hours once a week. It also allowed for virtual parenting time via FaceTime on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. This highly restrictive schedule remained the status quo for the following year, during which Mr. DeRocco could only interact with his biological children under the watch of professional supervisors or through a screen.
By September 2025, Mr. DeRocco moved to set aside these temporary orders and reinstate the original 2-2-3 equal parenting schedule. His legal counsel argued that the orders issued by Justice Ramsay and Justice McKenzie were always intended to be temporary measures to address immediate safety concerns. The core of the father’s argument was that the circumstances had changed significantly because the investigations by the police and FACS had concluded. Mr. DeRocco pointed out that no criminal charges had ever been laid against him in the 19 months since the stepchild’s injury. Furthermore, he presented evidence that he had been cleared to resume his role as a primary caregiver for his stepchildren, including the child who had been injured.
Ms. Chiocchio opposed the motion, expressing a continued fear for the safety of the children. She argued that there was a lack of conclusive evidence that all investigations were completely finished. She also raised secondary concerns regarding the father’s living situation, questioning whether his home had enough bedroom space for all the children in the blended family. Additionally, she brought up concerns regarding Mr. DeRocco’s behavior during the supervised visits at Pathstone and his conduct during brief encounters at the children’s school. She requested that the court dismiss the motion and maintain the supervised access and sole custody arrangement.
Justice Reid reviewed the evidence thoroughly, focusing on the current status of the child protection investigations. A pivotal piece of evidence was a letter from FACS Niagara dated October 6, 2025. This letter confirmed that the agency permitted Mr. DeRocco to act in a primary caregiving role for his stepchildren without any supervision. The agency’s approval included the ability for him to pick them up from school and daycare independently. The court noted that FACS had implemented certain safety measures for the stepchildren, such as the use of digitized cameras in the home and ensuring the children had access to a phone for emergencies. Crucially, a separate letter from FACS dated September 9, 2025, confirmed that the society was not involved in any investigation specifically relating to the biological children of Mr. DeRocco and Ms. Chiocchio.
In his analysis, Justice Reid addressed the concerns raised by the mother regarding the father’s behavior and the living conditions at his home. The judge found that the father’s actions during supervised visits and at the school were not inappropriate and did not weigh into the court’s decision. Regarding the bedroom space, the judge determined that this issue was not relevant to the current motion. He noted that there had been no complaints about the living arrangements prior to the May 2024 incident and suggested that such matters should be reserved for a full trial rather than a temporary motion. The judge emphasized that there had never been an allegation that Mr. DeRocco had mistreated his own biological children either before or after the incident involving his stepchild.
The court then turned to the legal principles regarding the status quo in family law. Justice Reid explained that courts are generally reluctant to change a long standing living arrangement for children on a temporary basis because such changes can be destabilizing. In this case, the original status quo was the equal parenting time established in 2022. While Justice Ramsay was justified in temporarily altering that arrangement due to the urgent and unknown nature of the stepchild’s injuries in 2024, those concerns had now been resolved. Justice Reid concluded that the temporary orders should not be treated as a new status quo that requires deference. Instead, since the reasons for the emergency intervention no longer existed, the family should revert to the situation that existed before the investigations began.
Justice Reid ruled that the protection concerns which justified the supervised parenting time were no longer an impediment. He ordered that the temporary orders from July and November 2024 be vacated. However, recognizing that the children had not lived with their father on an equal basis for 16 months, the judge decided that a transition period was necessary. He noted that the upcoming holiday break was an ideal time for the children to re-acclimatize to spending longer periods with their father and his extended family.
The court ordered a graduated return to the original schedule. For the remainder of December 2025 and the beginning of January 2026, Mr. DeRocco was granted unsupervised parenting time over three specific weekends. The first period was set for December 20 to December 21, followed by a longer weekend from December 26 to December 28. A final transition weekend was scheduled for January 2 to January 4, 2026. Justice Reid ordered that the original terms of the September 2022 order, including joint decision-making and the equal 2-2-3 time-sharing rotation, would officially resume on January 5, 2026, coinciding with the children’s return to school.
The decision also touched upon the issue of legal costs. Justice Reid encouraged the parents to resolve the costs of the motion between themselves to avoid further litigation. If they are unable to reach an agreement, the court provided a strict timetable for written submissions to be filed throughout January 2026. The ruling effectively ends a long period of supervised access for the father and restores the legal framework the parties had originally agreed upon before the external investigation disrupted their family dynamic.
Read about other family law cases here.
- DeRocco v Chiocchio, 2025 ONSC 7055 (CanLII) ↩︎
- A 2-2-3 schedule is a popular shared parenting arrangement designed to ensure that young children are never away from either parent for more than a few days at a time. In this rotation, the children spend two days with one parent, the next two days with the other parent, and then three days (typically the weekend) back with the first parent. The following week, the schedule flips so that the parent who had the children for the weekend now has them for only the two-day mid-week period. This cycle repeats every two weeks, providing a predictable yet balanced routine where both parents remain actively involved in the children’s daily lives, including school days and weekends, on a strictly equal basis. ↩︎
