Andrae Shaw

The moving parties brought motions to quash part of an application for judicial review for lack of jurisdiction and to strike out certain expert evidence.

The underlying application challenged a decision by the Minister of Natural Resources regarding the Abitibi River Water Management Plan and sought a declaration that the Lakes and Rivers Improvement Act regime is unconstitutional for failing to trigger the duty to consult.

The Divisional Court held that it lacked jurisdiction under the Judicial Review Procedure Act to hear the broad constitutional challenge and transferred that portion of the application to the Superior Court.

The motion to strike evidence was adjourned to the panel hearing the judicial review.

This judgment addresses two related applications concerning the interpretation of a Parking Agreement and an Assignment Agreement.

The primary issues involved determining the correct formula for calculating parking rates, the necessity and admissibility of expert evidence, whether retroactive payments were due, and the authority of the parties to negotiate and fix parking rates.

The court interpreted the Parking Agreement to require rates based on commercial, bona fide, arm's length public parking rates, not landlord-to-tenant rates.

It rejected expert evidence as unnecessary for rate determination and found the submitted evidence from both sides deficient.

The court ordered retroactive payments from June 1, 2019, and implied a good faith obligation for all parties to negotiate the parking rate, clarifying that neither 1284225 Ontario Limited nor 200 Ferrand Realty Limited could unilaterally negotiate or impose rates.

The appellant lawyer appealed a decision of the Law Society Tribunal Appeal Division that upheld findings of professional misconduct relating to five separate client matters over a five-year period.

The misconduct included breaching a Small Claims Court production order, failing to serve a client, breaching confidentiality by sending a termination letter containing legal advice to a client's psychiatrist, delaying the deposit of trust funds, misleading the court about an unpaid costs order, and improperly proposing a mutual withdrawal of Law Society complaints.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding no palpable and overriding errors or errors of law in the Appeal Panel's decision, and upheld the costs award against the appellant.

The plaintiffs sought to have their statement of claim treated as issued on June 25, 2019, the day the limitation period expired under the Insurance Act.

A paralegal had presented the claim to a court clerk before the 5:00 pm closing time, but the clerk refused to process it, stating his computer was shutting down.

The court found that the plaintiffs did all that was required to commence the proceeding in time and that the failure was solely due to court staff.

Exercising its inherent jurisdiction, the court granted a nunc pro tunc order declaring the claim issued on June 25, 2019, and dismissed the defendants' summary judgment motion.