What if a court ordered that each parent bear their own costs in a custody dispute?

What if courts normally tell each parent to bear his or her own expenses? Then fighting an improbable, even hopeless, custody battle will entail no more risk or expense than fighting one likely to succeed. Merits will become irrelevant to each parent’s pre-suit calculation of likely benefits and expenses. After a final judgment on custody, to treat equally those proven to be right and those proven to be wrong, does nothing to discourage doubtful, unduly prolonged, or ill-founded litigation. This alone is a very weighty factor in favour of there being no special rule about costs in custody cases. Yet costs exist as a disincentive for meritless positions in litigation: Min. of Forests v. Okanagan I.B., supra, at 275 (W.W.R.) (para. 26). In many other suits, money or property is in issue, so that a party with poor chances knows that he will probably gain nothing and have to pay his lawyer, even before he takes likely party-party costs into account. One with good prospects will probably win, and thereby get money in hand to pay his lawyer. But rarely will a custody dispute let either parent win money.