A. Burke Doran

Appeal from an order varying a pre-Guidelines child support order to the table amount under the Federal Child Support Guidelines.

The court held it was bound by prior Ontario authority requiring the party seeking variation to establish a material change in circumstances beyond the mere coming into force of the Guidelines, but strongly questioned that authority and recommended reconsideration.

The court also held that, following the Supreme Court’s decision on s. 4(b), a high-income payor must have the opportunity to show that the table amount is inappropriate.

Fresh evidence was refused, the variation order was set aside, and the matter was remitted for a new hearing.

Appeal from a solicitor's negligence judgment arising out of two insurance litigation files handled for an insurer.

In the Little matter, the court upheld the finding that counsel negligently failed to alert the insurer to a coverage issue revealed on discovery and that, but for that failure, the insurer would likely have denied errors and omissions coverage based on material non-disclosure in the insurance application.

In the Uniroyal matter, the court held that the trial judge erred in interpreting pollution exclusion wording as clearly excluding groundwater contamination under a 1987 umbrella policy, with the result that the insurer still had a duty to defend and suffered no compensable loss from counsel's conduct.

The appeal was therefore dismissed in part and allowed in part, with a later addendum awarding the appellant trial costs of the Uniroyal matter.