Alexandra Hoy

The appellant mother appealed the decision of the Ontario Superior Court, which had upheld a motion judge's order making three young children Crown wards (now called extended society care) without access to the mother under the Child and Family Services Act.

The appeal judge applied the wrong legislation (CFSA instead of CYFSA) and the wrong summary judgment principles.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal in part, confirming the extended society care order but granting the mother access to the children.

The court found that the motion judge's factual findings regarding the mother's inability to adequately care for the children were sound, but the denial of access was based on improper judicial notice and unsupported assumptions about adoption prospects.

The nature and extent of access were remanded to the Ontario Court of Justice.

The appellant appealed a motion judge's order dismissing her action against the respondents under Rule 21.01(1)(b) of the Rules of Civil Procedure without leave to amend.

The appellant alleged that the respondents breached a settlement agreement by: (1) appealing her WSIB benefits claim in violation of a release clause, and (2) breaching confidentiality provisions by disclosing settlement agreement information in an affidavit filed in a class proceeding.

The motion judge struck both claims and dismissed the action against the individual respondent.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding it was not plain and obvious that the claims could not succeed, and granted leave to amend the claim against the individual respondent.

The appellant appealed from an order of the Superior Court of Justice dismissing his application against his daughters regarding the transfer of a mortgage from a family company to a family trust.

The Court of Appeal determined that it lacked jurisdiction to hear the appeal because the order arose from an oppression application under the Business Corporations Act, for which the proper appellate route is to the Divisional Court, not the Court of Appeal.

The court rejected the appellant's arguments that section 6(2) of the Courts of Justice Act or Rule 6.01(1) of the Rules of Civil Procedure permitted the Court of Appeal to hear the appeal, and declined to reconstitute itself as the Divisional Court.

The appeal was transferred to the Divisional Court.

The appellant brought a motion to vary a decision of the Court of Appeal for Ontario dated June 11, 2019.

The court found that the narrow grounds upon which such a decision may be varied were not present and dismissed the motion.

The appellant appealed the motion judge's order striking his statement of claim and dismissing his action against his daughters and their company.

The appellant sought to challenge the validity of a family trust established in connection with an estate freeze in 2007.

The motion judge had struck the claim on the basis of res judicata, collateral attack, and abuse of process, finding that the appellant could have raised the validity issue in the daughters' prior oppression application but failed to do so.

The Court of Appeal upheld the motion judge's decision, finding that the doctrine of abuse of process alone warranted striking the claim, as allowing the action to proceed would constitute an attempt to relitigate a matter already decided.

The appellant appealed a judgment of the Superior Court of Justice determining that fencing and a retaining wall along Greenfield Avenue in Ottawa constituted "Shared Property" under a Co-Tenancy Agreement dated December 15, 1998, governing a townhouse development known as Kings Landing.

The Court of Appeal upheld the lower court's contractual interpretation, finding no palpable and overriding error and no extricable question of law.

The application judge had correctly articulated and applied the principles of contractual interpretation and read the contract as a whole.

The appeal was dismissed with costs fixed at $20,500 including HST and disbursements.

The appellant was convicted of six offences: conspiracy to traffic firearms, conspiracy to traffic cocaine, possession of a firearm for the purpose of transfer, possession of an unlicensed firearm, possession of a firearm with its serial number removed, and possession of property obtained by crime.

The appeal raised three grounds: the jury selection procedure, the refusal to sever charges, and jury instructions.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal on the jury selection ground, finding that the trial judge erred in ruling he lacked jurisdiction to order exclusion of unsworn jurors while using rotating triers.

The appellant had specifically requested this procedure and was deprived of his chosen option when forced to select between static triers with full exclusion or rotating triers with no exclusion.

The Court found this error could not be cured by the curative proviso and ordered a new trial.

The appellant brought two motions seeking to review orders relating to security for costs, an extension of time to perfect its appeal, and a dismissal of the appeal for delay.

The underlying action involved allegations that the respondent bank was negligent for failing to notify the appellant of fraud suspicions communicated by a Polish bank.

Summary judgment was granted dismissing the action.

The Court of Appeal set aside the security for costs order, the order denying a further extension of time, and the Registrar's dismissal of the appeal, granting the appellant a final extension to perfect its appeal.

The appellant appealed a summary judgment order dismissing her claims against TD Canada Trust and Dan Arcand.

The appellant failed to demonstrate any error in the motion judge's conclusion that TD Canada Trust was entitled to terminate its banking relationship with the appellant.

The appellant also failed to point to any evidence sustaining her other claims for defamation and unjust enrichment.

The Court of Appeal upheld the summary judgment and dismissed both the motion for leave to appeal and the appeal itself, awarding costs to the respondent.

The appellant appealed a trial judge's order awarding sole custody of the parties' twelve-year-old son to the respondent, along with ancillary orders.

The appellant raised three grounds of appeal: (1) that the trial judge failed to give proper weight to the son's expressed preferences; (2) that the trial judge's reasons were inadequate because they did not specifically refer to the factors in section 24(2) of the Children's Law Reform Act; and (3) that the trial judge misunderstood or misapplied the law relating to joint custody in parallel parenting mode.

The Court of Appeal dismissed all grounds of appeal, finding no substantiation for any of the appellant's contentions and affirming the trial judge's fact-based decision.

The appellant appealed the dismissal of his motion for leave to proceed with a motion to change a 2010 child support order and to reduce a 2012 security for costs order.

The motion judge had dismissed both requests without adequate explanation.

The Court of Appeal found that the motion judge's reasons were insufficient for meaningful appellate review.

The court determined that the appellant had established a prima facie case of change in circumstances warranting review of the child support order, including significant income reduction and bankruptcy.

The court allowed the appeal, granted leave to proceed with the motion to reduce security for costs, and reduced the security requirement from $59,500 to $10,000, enabling the appellant to pursue his motion to change the child support order.

The appellant appealed a sentencing order imposing 15 days in jail, to be served on weekends, for contempt of an order relating to the passing of accounts of his aunt's estate.

The Court of Appeal found that the sentencing judge erred in principle by considering that the appellant had not put forward a plan for adequate supervision of house arrest terms in concluding that a conditional sentence was not appropriate.

The court noted that the appellant had purged his contempt, was a lawyer with over 45 years of practice, was 73 years old with no prior convictions or contempt findings, and that his non-compliance arose from a failure to understand and appreciate the importance of complying with the order rather than callous disregard for court authority.

The sentence was suspended and set aside.

The appellant appealed a judgment of the Superior Court of Justice dismissing her motion to set aside her noting in default and granting default judgment to the respondent.

The appellant argued that the motion judge erred in his assessment of the merits of her defence.

The Court of Appeal affirmed the lower court decision, finding the appeal to be without merit and that there was no basis to interfere with the discretionary decision of the motion judge.

Costs were awarded to the respondent.

The appellants appealed a summary judgment dismissing their negligence claim arising from a personal injury sustained during a fitness class at the respondent's facility.

The plaintiff stepped on a round dumbbell and fell.

The motion judge found that the respondents were not negligent, that the round dumbbell did not pose an unusual hazard, and that the risk of a round dumbbell rolling was obvious.

The motion judge also rejected the appellants' argument regarding a duty to warn.

The Court of Appeal upheld the summary judgment and dismissed the appeal.

The vendor of commercial condominium units sought a declaration that the purchaser had anticipatorily breached an agreement of purchase and sale and that the vendor was entitled to retain the deposit.

The application judge found that the agreement came to an end when both parties were unable to close on the appointed date and ordered the deposit returned.

On appeal, the vendor argued that the purchaser had anticipatorily repudiated the agreement and sought to hold the purchaser's signatory personally liable as a guarantor.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that although the purchaser had anticipatorily repudiated the agreement, the vendor's insistence on strict performance on the scheduled date, combined with its own failure to be ready, willing and able to close on that date, resulted in the agreement terminating.

The court also rejected the personal guarantee claim against the signatory.

On appeal from trial judge Sutherland's orders regarding spousal support and property division in a separation agreement dispute.

The trial judge found no basis to set aside the separation agreement under s. 56(4) of the Family Law Act but applied the Miglin test under s. 15.2 of the Divorce Act to award modest lump sum spousal support of $143,933 despite a spousal support waiver in the agreement.

The trial judge concluded the waiver did not substantially comply with the objectives of the Divorce Act.

The father appealed seeking to set aside the property provisions; the mother cross-appealed seeking to uphold the agreement in its entirety.

The Court of Appeal dismissed both the appeal and cross-appeal, finding no reversible error in the trial judge's application of the law to the facts.

The Crown appealed the acquittal of the respondent on charges of human trafficking, procuring a person to offer or provide sexual services for consideration, and advertising sexual services for consideration.

The trial judge misdirected the jury on the interpretation of the statutory provisions governing these offences.

Specifically, the trial judge erred by: (1) instructing the jury to read the disjunctive conduct elements conjunctively, requiring proof of near-total control over the complainant's movements; (2) failing to distinguish between "direction" and "influence" as different degrees of coercion; and (3) improperly extending the immunity provision for advertising one's own sexual services to those who assist in such advertising.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and ordered a new trial.

A judgment released on May 27, 2019 in this appeal was withdrawn due to a procedural error.

One member of the three-judge panel that heard the appeal, Justice Huscroft, was not provided with either the draft or final judgment for review or signature.

The judgment was signed in error by a justice who was not a member of the hearing panel.

The court determined that the judgment was of no force or effect and that the appeal must be re-heard by a differently constituted panel.

The appellant appealed a motion judge's decision striking out paragraphs from its statement of defence that pleaded the respondents' ulterior motive in bringing the action.

The respondents alleged breaches of representations and warranties and fraudulent conduct arising from a share purchase agreement for the acquisition of a European auto parts manufacturing business valued at $410 million.

The defendant claimed the respondents' true motive was to obtain an after-the-fact reduction in the purchase price due to their own financial difficulties, rather than to recover genuine damages for genuine wrongs.

The motion judge struck these allegations as irrelevant and frivolous and vexatious under rule 25.11(b) of the Rules of Civil Procedure, and refused leave to amend.

The Crown appealed the sentence imposed on the respondent for six offences committed during a shooting incident in Hamilton.

The trial judge imposed a total sentence of five years imprisonment before pre-sentence custody credit.

The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge committed material legal errors: (1) improperly reducing the sentence based on time served for related but distinct Thunder Bay offences; (2) imposing a concurrent rather than consecutive sentence for possession of a firearm while prohibited; and (3) considering irrelevant mitigating factors.

The Court allowed the appeal and substituted a sentence of seven years for the discharging offence and one year consecutive for the firearm prohibition offence, resulting in a total sentence of eight years imprisonment.