Bradley W. Miller

The appellant appealed the dismissal of her constructive dismissal action, which was decided on a Rule 21 motion.

The Court of Appeal found that the motion judge erred by taking judicial notice of disputed facts and by misapplying pleading rules, effectively treating the Rule 21 motion as a summary judgment motion.

The Court held that material factual issues were in dispute, making a Rule 21 determination inappropriate without evidence.

The Court declined to interpret the Employment Standards Act provisions and associated regulations regarding infectious disease emergency leave (IDEL) in the absence of a proper factual record, remitting the action to the Superior Court for determination.

Mary Thompson, charged with fraud over $5,000, applied for a stay of proceedings under s. 24(1) of the Charter due to a violation of her s. 11(b) right to trial within a reasonable time.

Applying the R. v. Jordan framework, the court calculated the total delay from the information being sworn (May 30, 2019) to the anticipated end of trial (June 24, 2022) as 36.85 months, exceeding the 30-month presumptive ceiling for superior courts.

After deducting 61 days for defence waiver and delay, and 134 days for COVID-19 related exceptional circumstances, the remaining delay was 30.44 months, still above the ceiling.

The Crown failed to rebut the presumption of unreasonableness, and the court found no exceptional circumstances related to the case's complexity to justify the delay.

The application for a stay of proceedings was granted.

The appellant brought a second application for adverse possession of a smaller portion of land after a previous application for the same parcel was dismissed on summary judgment and the appeal was dismissed.

The second application was dismissed on the basis of res judicata and issue estoppel.

The appellant appealed, claiming the subject matter of the current application was not the same.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the earlier action included the smaller portion and that a claimant cannot modify the parameters of their claim within the same boundaries to obtain a different result, as this is contrary to the objective of res judicata and issue estoppel.

The appellant, Hafeez Fazl, sought a panel review of a single judge's decision to dismiss his appeal for delay.

He also requested an adjournment, initially for a religious pilgrimage, and subsequently on the grounds of being a party under a disability requiring a litigation guardian, citing a 2019 doctor's note.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario dismissed the adjournment request due to a lack of proper medical or psychiatric evidence and the absence of any application under the Substitute Decisions Act, 1992.

The panel found no error in the original dismissal of the appeal for delay, noting the underlying action had been dismissed on summary judgment as being "without a scintilla of merit" due to previous litigation on the same issues.

The motion for review was dismissed, with no order as to costs.

The appellant appealed his sentence for possession of a loaded firearm, possession of a firearm while prohibited, and making a false statement.

The Court of Appeal found that the sentencing judge erred in principle by exceeding the Crown's proposed sentence without notifying counsel or providing clear reasons, by treating the loaded nature of the firearm as a separate aggravating factor (when it was an essential element of the offence), and by failing to consider the guilty plea as a mitigating factor.

The appeal was allowed, the original sentence was vacated, and a global sentence of four years' custody (as initially proposed by the Crown) was imposed, less pre-sentence custody credit.

The appellant sought an adjournment of their appeal and motion to quash due to a breakdown in the solicitor-client relationship and uncertainty regarding new counsel's availability.

The Court of Appeal granted the adjournment, conditional on the appellant paying $7,000 in outstanding costs by a specified date, failing which the appeal would be dismissed.

The appellant, Armando Scarlato Jr., appealed the dismissal of his breach of contract action on a motion for summary judgment.

He alleged the respondents, Richard Buzbuzian and Jason Monaco, breached an agreement to pay him a commission or finder’s fee for introducing them to a third-party corporation for a proposed IPO.

The motion judge found that emails exchanged did not constitute a contract, lacking essential terms, and alternatively, that the appellant was estopped by a settlement with the third party.

The Court of Appeal upheld the motion judge's finding that no contract was formed, emphasizing deference to findings of contractual interpretation as mixed fact and law, and concluding that the term sheet did not remedy the contractual deficiencies.

The appeal was dismissed with costs to the respondents.

The appellants sought to appeal the dismissal of their application challenging outdoor gathering restrictions imposed as public health measures during the COVID-19 pandemic, which was initially dismissed for lack of public interest standing.

The Court of Appeal determined that the underlying application was moot because the challenged regulations were no longer in force.

The court declined to exercise its discretion to hear the appeal regarding Mr. Baber's private interest standing, finding that this issue was also moot and that a decision would not resolve any live controversy or bind future hypothetical challenges.

The appellant, a professional accountant and second-time bankrupt, appealed a conditional discharge order requiring him to pay $325,000 to the Trustee.

The application judge found the appellant untruthful, evasive, and in breach of disclosure obligations under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, including failing to disclose businesses, records, property, vehicle sales, and loans/inheritance from his mother.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, affirming the conditional discharge was based on the appellant's conduct and disclosure breaches, not surplus income under s. 68.

The court also addressed improper ex parte communications by the Trustee, finding no miscarriage of justice.

This is an appeal from a Superior Court of Justice order concerning an estate trustee's conflict of interest and a claim for compensation.

The appellant argued that the application judge made palpable or overriding errors in her findings of fact and application of law.

The Court of Appeal found no such errors, affirming the lower court's determination that a conflict of interest prevented the appellant from continuing as estate trustee and upholding the decision on the appellant's compensation claim.

The appeal was dismissed with costs.

This decision addresses a request by the respondent (defendant in the original action) to limit the scope of a new trial on liability and damages, which had been ordered by the Court of Appeal in a prior decision.

The court dismissed the request, emphasizing that the evidence and issues were complex, interrelated, and interdependent.

Limiting the trial to specific issues would risk artificial credibility assessments and unreliable fact-finding.

The appellant appealed the motion judge's decision to dismiss his application under Rule 2.1 of the Rules of Civil Procedure as frivolous, vexatious, or an abuse of process.

The underlying application sought damages for alleged mistreatment by a housing corporation after the appellant was denied a housing subsidy and assessed a rent increase.

The Court of Appeal found no error in the motion judge's conclusion that the application bore the hallmarks of querulous litigant behaviour and dismissed the appeal.

This is an appeal from a Superior Court order appointing a receiver and manager for Go-To Developments Holdings Inc. and related entities, and continuing freeze directions, following an Ontario Securities Commission investigation into alleged securities law breaches, including misappropriation of investor funds by Oscar Furtado.

The appellants challenged the application judge's denial of an adjournment and the admission of Mr. Furtado's examination transcripts.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no error in the adjournment denial, especially in light of fresh evidence demonstrating further misconduct by Mr. Furtado.

The court declined to address the admissibility of transcripts as the issue was not raised below.

The appellant challenged a lower court order that struck two versions of his statement of claim (except for a battery claim) and denied him leave to amend it a third time to add a new party (the Union) and a civil conspiracy claim.

The motion judge had found the claims against the Union and the civil conspiracy claim to be statute-barred, and declaratory relief also barred as it was connected to damages.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no error in the motion judge's conclusion that the civil conspiracy elements were not pleaded in earlier claims and that the new claims were out of time, even when reading the self-represented appellant's pleadings generously.

The appellant appealed his convictions for possessing and accessing child pornography, arguing that evidence obtained during the execution of a search warrant should have been excluded due to breaches of his Charter rights, specifically the right to counsel under s. 10(b).

The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge erred in concluding that the appellant was not detained prior to his formal arrest, applying the R. v. Grant factors.

The court determined that the appellant was psychologically detained from the moment police entered his home, and his s. 10(b) rights were violated.

Applying the s. 24(2) Grant factors, the court found the Charter breach serious, the impact on the appellant significant, and society's interest in the administration of justice favoured exclusion.

Consequently, the appeal was allowed, convictions quashed, and acquittals entered.

The appellant, Pius Bempong, appealed his conviction for sexual interference, arguing that the jury's verdicts of not guilty for sexual assault but guilty for sexual interference, based on the same facts, were inconsistent and unreasonable.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario dismissed the appeal, finding that the apparent inconsistency could be reconciled by a legal error in the trial judge's instructions regarding the definition of "force" in sexual assault versus "touching" in sexual interference, as per the framework established in R. v. R.V. The court clarified that the Crown is not required to cross-appeal an acquittal to rebut an inconsistent verdict argument raised by an appellant.

The appellant appealed the dismissal of her Superior Court action against Canada Post Corporation and Norton Rose Fulbright Canada, which was found to be frivolous, vexatious, and an abuse of process under Rule 2.1.01.

The Superior Court action alleged misconduct by the respondents in a Federal Court proceeding.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, affirming the application of absolute privilege for statements made in judicial proceedings and the prohibition against collateral attack, finding no arguable merit to the appellant's grounds of appeal, including a recusal request.

Nikolas Jergovic appealed a conditional discharge order from the Ontario Review Board (ORB), seeking an absolute discharge or a new hearing.

He was found not criminally responsible (NCR) for arson in 2010 and has been under ORB supervision.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario reviewed the ORB's decision for unreasonableness, a wrong decision on a question of law, or a miscarriage of justice.

The Court found that the ORB applied the correct "significant risk" test and that its conclusion, based on evidence of potential relapse into drug abuse leading to unlawful conduct, was reasonable and supported by the record.

The appeal was dismissed, upholding the conditional discharge.

The applicant, Michael Buabeng, sought a stay of proceedings under section 11(b) of the Charter, alleging unreasonable delay in his criminal prosecution for assault and sexual assault charges.

The total delay was 1,401 days (46 months), exceeding the 30-month presumptive ceiling for Superior Courts.

The court deducted 105 days for defence delay, resulting in a net delay of 1,296 days.

The Crown argued for exceptional circumstances, including 181 days due to uncertainty surrounding Bill C-75 amendments to preliminary inquiries and 341 days due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

After deducting these exceptional circumstances, the remaining delay was 823 days (27.4 months), falling below the presumptive ceiling.

The onus then shifted to the defence to demonstrate that the delay was nonetheless unreasonable.

The court found that the applicant failed to meet this burden, and therefore, the application for a stay of proceedings was dismissed.

The Crown appealed directed verdicts of acquittal and a stay of proceedings in a multi-accused robbery trial, arguing the trial judge erred in excluding similar act evidence and granting a stay for lost evidence.

The respondents cross-appealed their convictions.

The Court of Appeal found the trial judge erred in excluding similar act evidence due to insufficient reasons and in granting a stay without assessing prejudice.

The Crown's appeal was granted, setting aside the acquittals and stay, and ordering a new trial on those counts.

The respondents' cross-appeals against conviction were dismissed as the similar act rulings had benefited them or were consented to, and other grounds lacked merit.