Analee Baroudi

The appellants appealed a decision dismissing their application under s. 440 of the Municipal Act, 2001, seeking to enforce a municipal fence by-law against the respondents.

The application judge had declined to intervene, finding the Municipality had articulable reasons for not enforcing the by-law.

The Court of Appeal agreed that the application judge erred in requiring proof of municipal unreasonableness or bad faith for a taxpayer to succeed under s. 440.

However, the appeal was dismissed because the appellants failed to provide sufficient evidence to establish a clear breach of the Fence By-law, particularly regarding how the by-law's definitions, which are tied to "street," applied to the respondents' property, which abuts private roads.

The applicants' application regarding a fence dispute was dismissed.

The respondents sought costs on a full indemnity basis of approximately $41,000, arguing the litigation was trivial and driven by the applicants' self-centered obsessiveness.

The applicants sought their own costs of approximately $19,000, arguing they achieved partial success because the respondents removed an encroaching fence after the application was commenced.

The court agreed the litigation was largely unnecessary but acknowledged the applicants' limited success regarding the removed fence.

The court ordered the applicants to pay the respondents $25,000 in costs inclusive of HST and disbursements.

The applicants sought an order compelling the respondents to reduce the height of a fence to comply with a municipal by-law, after the municipality declined to enforce it.

The court considered whether it could intervene in a municipality's discretionary decision not to enforce a by-law.

Relying on established jurisprudence, the court found that it could only intervene if the municipality acted unreasonably or in bad faith.

As no such evidence was adduced, and the municipality provided articulable reasons for its decision, the application was dismissed.

The applicants brought an application under section 83 of the Municipal Elections Act to declare the 2018 municipal election in Lambton Shores invalid.

The applicants alleged nine distinct irregularities, primarily focusing on the municipality's exclusive use of internet and telephone voting, the removal of names from the voters' list, and privacy concerns.

The Superior Court of Justice dismissed the application, finding no evidence of any irregularities that led to the disenfranchisement of eligible voters or the enfranchisement of ineligible voters.

The court concluded that the municipality complied with the Act and that the applicants' complaints stemmed from a personal distrust of electronic voting rather than actionable statutory breaches.