Andrew Winton

The appellants challenged orders striking a defence and dismissing a related claim for disclosure non-compliance.

The court found the motion judge gave thorough reasons, exercised discretion within a case-managed context under rule 37.15, and committed no error warranting intervention.

The appeal was dismissed with substantial costs.

The appellants appealed a trial judgment declaring that approximately 1.4 miles of coastline (the Disputed Beach) forms part of the Saugeen Indian Reserve No. 29 under Treaty 72 of 1854.

The trial judge found that the Crown breached its fiduciary duty and acted dishonourably when a surveyor improperly excluded the beach from the reserve boundaries.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeals, finding no errors in the trial judge's application of treaty interpretation principles or her assessment of the historical record.

The Court also upheld the trial judge's decision to deny the bona fide purchaser for value defence to private landowners, prioritizing the First Nation's constitutionally protected treaty rights.

A cross-appeal by Canada regarding the allocation of pre-Confederation liability was allowed and referred to the next phase of the trial.

The moving parties (respondents in the bankruptcy applications) sought to stay the bankruptcy applications brought by the responding party bank.

The bank had demanded repayment of personal lines of credit that were used to fund the moving parties' corporate entities, which were under CCAA protection.

The court granted the stay, finding that the bank was acting as a single creditor without special circumstances justifying a bankruptcy order.

Furthermore, the court held that the claims were captured by the broad stay of proceedings issued in the CCAA proceedings.

The bankrupt, a former real estate developer, sought an absolute discharge from bankruptcy.

The discharge was opposed by the Trustee, the Canada Revenue Agency, and several creditors, who argued that the bankrupt's assets were less than 50 cents on the dollar for reasons he could be held responsible for, and that he failed to perform his duties under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act.

The court found that the bankrupt had engaged in an asset protection strategy, incurred significant personal liabilities without the means to pay them, and failed to disclose his true post-bankruptcy lifestyle and use of a corporate credit card.

The court declined to refuse the discharge entirely but imposed a substantial conditional order requiring the bankrupt to pay $960,000 and fulfill various outstanding duties.

Following a finding of civil contempt against the defendant for repeatedly forging bank records and lying under oath, the court held a penalty hearing.

Applying criminal sentencing principles, the court weighed aggravating factors, including the deliberate and repeated nature of the deceit, against mitigating factors such as the defendant's eventual remorse and lack of prior record.

The court determined that a significant costs award was the appropriate sanction to punish and deter the conduct, ordering the defendant to pay $400,000 as a penalty, plus $44,118.46 for the costs of the hearing on a substantial indemnity basis.

The Chippewas of Saugeen First Nation brought an action seeking a declaration that a 1.4-mile strip of Sauble Beach (the Disputed Beach) is part of their unsurrendered reserve land under Treaty 72 of 1854.

The court found that the Imperial Crown's surveyor, Charles Rankin, improperly marked the northern terminus of the reserve's eastern boundary further south than the Treaty stipulated, depriving the First Nation of the promised coastline.

The court held that the Imperial Crown and the federal Crown breached their sui generis fiduciary duties and acted inconsistently with the honour of the Crown by failing to properly survey, protect, and preserve the reserve.

The court rejected the defendants' arguments that the First Nation's claim was defeated by Crown patents, the doctrine of bona fide purchaser for value without notice, the Limitations Act, laches, dedication, or proprietary estoppel.

The court declared that the Disputed Beach remains unsurrendered reserve land for the sole use and benefit of the First Nation.

Three franchisees (Versatile, Everest, and Premium Host) sought to rescind their franchise agreements with Paramount Fine Foods under the Arthur Wishart Act, alleging the franchisor failed to provide compliant disclosure documents.

The court found that Paramount was not exempt from its disclosure obligations.

However, Versatile and Everest failed to prove on a balance of probabilities that the disclosure documents they received were fatally flawed, so their rescission claims were dismissed.

Premium Host successfully established that Paramount failed to disclose material financial information in a single document, rendering its disclosure fatally flawed.

Premium Host's rescission was deemed valid, and it was awarded statutory compensation against the franchisor and its associates, including Paramount Leasing and the Manager of Franchising.

The Monitor sought an order authorizing distributions from the sale of Geothermal Assets.

KTNI disputed the Monitor's recommended disallowance of its claim to a portion of the proceeds based on a transfer provision in the Berm Lease.

The court found that the plain language of the lease reserved the transfer value to KTNI and that the provision was not invalidated by the pari passu or anti-deprivation rules.

The Monitor was directed to distribute $2,049,000 to KTNI, but no funds were to be distributed to Doreen Saskin until her claim in the bankruptcy of KTNI's parent company was accepted.

The defendants brought a motion for security for costs against three corporate plaintiffs (former franchisees) in three related actions.

The plaintiffs argued they were impecunious and that an order would be unjust due to the defendants' delay, the existence of counterclaims, and the nature of franchise litigation.

The court found that the plaintiffs were not impecunious because their shareholders had the ability to fund the litigation.

Applying a holistic approach, the court determined it was just to order security for costs, but reduced the quantum to reflect the defendants' delay and the overlapping counterclaims.

In the context of CCAA proceedings for the Urbancorp entities, the Monitor brought a motion for an order approving and directing distributions from the sale of geothermal assets.

The court approved two unopposed distributions recommended by the Monitor in its Forty-Fifth Report, specifically regarding VII - Curve and UNKI.

The balance of the requested relief was adjourned to a date to be set.

In a CCAA proceeding, the Functionary and Terra Firma brought a motion to late file a claim and to approve a settlement agreement between them regarding the distribution of the debtor's funds.

The court allowed the late filing of the claim but ruled the Functionary's unsworn report inadmissible.

The court dismissed the motion to approve the settlement, finding that a settlement of claims against the debtor requires the consent of the debtor or the Monitor, neither of which had agreed to the settlement.

The plaintiffs requested an amendment to the court's previous reasons dismissing their request for injunctive relief, citing an error in a transcript regarding whether the Law Society of Upper Canada was investigating the plaintiffs.

The defendant conceded the transcript error but argued the dismissal should be maintained.

The court corrected the factual error in its supplementary reasons but declined to amend its previous order, finding that the plaintiffs' case for injunctive relief was still not ironclad enough to warrant the exceptional remedy sought.

The appellants appealed an arbitration decision that dismissed their claim for rectification of a unanimous shareholders' agreement.

The appellants argued that the right of first offer clause contained a mutual mistake by allowing a partial take-up of shares, and sought to rectify it to require an all-or-nothing purchase.

The arbitrator found no prior common intention to support rectification.

On appeal, the court held that the issues raised by the appellants were questions of fact or mixed fact and law, not extricable questions of law.

The appeal was dismissed with costs awarded to the respondents.

The applicant, an Indigenous person, sought an urgent interim and interlocutory injunction to restrain the broadcast and display of the Cleveland Indians' team name and 'Chief Wahoo' logo during the American League Championship Series in Toronto, pending human rights complaints.

The court found there was a serious issue to be tried regarding whether the name and logo constituted discrimination in the provision of a service.

However, the court dismissed the application because the applicant failed to establish irreparable harm, noting the delay in bringing the application, and found the balance of convenience favoured the respondents due to the material prejudice of last-minute broadcast and uniform changes.

The defendant brought a motion to stay a wrongful dismissal action on the basis that Ontario was a forum non conveniens and that the dispute should instead be litigated in New York State.

The court accepted that Ontario had jurisdiction simpliciter because the defendant corporation maintained its registered head office in Ontario.

Applying the forum non conveniens analysis from leading authorities, the court held that the moving party had not established that New York was clearly the more appropriate forum.

Factors such as the Ontario employment contract, the defendant’s presence-based jurisdiction in Ontario, and the loss of legitimate juridical advantages in a U.S. at‑will employment regime supported maintaining the action in Ontario.

The motion to stay the proceeding was therefore dismissed.

Following the dismissal of motions seeking an interlocutory voting injunction, an imaging order, and a contempt order, the court determined the appropriate costs award.

The unsuccessful moving party argued that most costs should be deferred to trial because the evidence overlapped with issues to be litigated on the merits.

The court rejected this submission, applying the principle that a successful defendant resisting interlocutory injunctive relief is generally entitled to costs payable forthwith.

After considering factors under Rule 57.01 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, including the high stakes of the motions, the absence of legal complexity, and certain conduct contributing to the contempt motion, the court fixed reduced partial indemnity costs for each successful defendant.

The respondent to an application for recognition and enforcement of a foreign arbitral award moved to adjourn enforcement pending the outcome of an annulment proceeding in the originating jurisdiction.

The court considered Articles 35 and 36 of the UNCITRAL Model Law incorporated into the International Commercial Arbitration Act.

Applying the balance of convenience approach developed in Canadian jurisprudence, the court held that only an "issue to be tried" was required and that the possibility of the award being set aside justified a temporary adjournment.

However, given the low likelihood of success in the annulment proceeding and the validity of the award, the court exercised its discretion to require partial security as a condition of the adjournment.

The moving party sought three forms of relief in a commercial dispute involving alleged misuse of confidential information: an interlocutory injunction preventing a shareholder from voting its 35% interest in a telecommunications company, an order authorizing forensic imaging and review of the defendants’ corporate servers and devices, and a finding of contempt for alleged breach of a prior consent order.

The court held that the requested voting injunction could not be granted because the moving party failed to provide the mandatory undertaking as to damages under Rule 40.03 of the Rules of Civil Procedure and failed to demonstrate irreparable harm or a favourable balance of convenience.

The requested imaging order was refused because there was no evidence that the responding party had failed to comply with its document production obligations or attempted to conceal or destroy electronic evidence.

The contempt motion also failed because the alleged acts—deleting personal browsing history and installing software capable of secure deletion—did not establish beyond a reasonable doubt that relevant information had been intentionally destroyed in breach of the consent order.

The defendants brought a motion to compel answers to undertakings and refusals arising from the plaintiff’s examination for discovery in a commercial dispute alleging breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and misuse of proprietary information following the departure of key employees to a competitor.

The court applied the relevance principles under Rules 31.06 and 30.02 of the Rules of Civil Procedure and the governing jurisprudence on discovery scope.

Some questions and undertakings were ordered answered where they were relevant to damages, business dealings, or the alleged misuse of confidential materials, while others were refused as speculative or unrelated to the pleaded issues.

The court also addressed requests for commercially sensitive documents, ordering production of certain manuals and a DVD containing returned documents subject to a confidentiality agreement but rejecting a “counsel eyes only” restriction.

The plaintiff was ordered to provide outstanding undertakings and answers within 45 days and to attend for a further seven hours of discovery.

The applicants sought a declaration that they validly exercised a shotgun buy/sell provision in a shareholders agreement, requiring the respondents to transfer their shares in the corporation.

The respondents argued the shotgun notice was invalid because it was issued jointly by two shareholders, and alternatively, that the applicants repudiated the agreement by demanding a release not required by the contract.

The court held that the shotgun provision, interpreted in its factual matrix, allowed for joint exercise by the applicants as a single shareholder group.

The court further found that the applicants did not repudiate the agreement, as they were ready and willing to close without the disputed release, whereas the respondents refused to close.

The application was granted, and the respondents were ordered to transfer their shares.