Bradley W. Miller

The appellants appealed from a motion judge's decision that dismissed their motion for summary judgment to dismiss the plaintiff's action and granted the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment for a declaration that three agreements of purchase and sale were valid and enforceable.

The central issue was the interpretation of handwritten amendments to the agreements that used the terms "verdict" and "official verdict" in place of the defined term "OMB Decision." The appellants argued that the use of different terms presumptively indicated different meanings were intended.

The Court of Appeal upheld the motion judge's conclusion that the terms had the same meaning, finding that the parties' clear intention was to condition the agreements on receipt of a final decision from the Ontario Municipal Board regarding a proposed development.

The appellants owned property adjacent to the respondents' property in Fergus, Ontario.

The respondents held an easement over part of the appellants' property providing interior access to the upper floors and roof of their own building.

The respondents sought to renovate their property for commercial and residential use, which included widening a third-floor door frame to create a fire exit and replacing doors to comply with building and fire regulations.

The appellants interfered with the easement and the respondents applied for declaratory and injunctive relief.

The application judge declared the easement valid and ordered the appellants not to interfere with the respondents' rights.

The appellants appealed, arguing the renovations impermissibly changed the use of the easement and that ancillary rights were void under the rule against perpetuities.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal.

The Crown appealed a summary conviction appeal decision that had set aside convictions for firearms offences on the grounds that amendments to the information were statute-barred by the six-month limitation period in section 786(2) of the Criminal Code.

The respondent was charged with two hybrid firearms offences under section 86 of the Criminal Code.

The Crown elected to proceed summarily and sought to amend the information to substitute different offences that better conformed to the evidence at trial.

The summary conviction appeal judge found the amendments were barred by the limitation period.

The Court of Appeal held that amendments to an information do not constitute the institution of new proceedings and therefore are not restricted by the limitation period in section 786(2).

The court emphasized that proceedings are instituted by the laying of an information, not by amendments thereto.

This appeal concerns an auditor's liability action arising from the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme.

The appellants, three Fairfield feeder funds incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, invested in Madoff's company and suffered losses when the fraud was revealed in December 2008.

The funds sued PricewaterhouseCoopers for breach of contract and negligence in auditing their financial statements for 2006 and 2007, claiming damages of approximately $2.5 billion.

The motion judge granted summary judgment dismissing the action on the basis that no damages were suffered, applying the Livent damages methodology.

The appellants appealed on five grounds, all involving findings of fact or mixed fact and law regarding the calculation of damages.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no palpable and overriding errors in the motion judge's analysis.

This is a costs endorsement on appeal from a Superior Court judgment dismissing requests for directions by Indian Residential School claimants pertaining to St. Anne's Indian Residential School.

The appellants sought costs on a partial indemnity scale, arguing the unique circumstances and public interest nature of the case warranted an award.

Independent Counsel also sought costs.

The Court of Appeal upheld the lower court's dismissal of the requests without costs, finding that the predominantly procedural nature of the issues on appeal did not warrant a costs award in favour of the appellants or Independent Counsel.

The appellant, Alex Beseiso, appealed his convictions for Causing a Disturbance and Assault Peace Officer, arguing that the trial judge erred in finding no violation of his s. 9 Charter rights (arbitrary detention) and failed to adequately address his self-defence argument.

The Superior Court of Justice, sitting as a summary conviction appeal court, dismissed the appeal.

The court found that the trial judge's factual findings regarding psychological detention were entitled to deference and were properly founded on the evidence.

It also concluded that the trial judge adequately addressed and rejected the appellant's self-defence claim, finding his gesture to police was aggressive, not defensive.

Appeal from a Superior Court judgment finding the indemnifier liable under an indemnity agreement for unpaid rent and related losses.

The indemnifier challenged the finding of liability based on alleged pre-contractual misrepresentations by the landlord regarding park improvements.

The court upheld the finding of liability, rejecting the misrepresentation defence.

On the quantum issue, the court dismissed the indemnifier's appeal regarding restoration costs and legal fees, but allowed the landlord's cross-appeal to extend liability for future rent through the end of the lease term, subject to mitigation credits.

An appeal under Part XX.1 of the Criminal Code from a disposition order of the Ontario Review Board.

The appellant was found not criminally responsible by reason of mental disorder for arson and failure to comply with a probation order.

The Board ordered continued detention on the general forensic unit of Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences.

The appellant sought an absolute discharge, alternatively a conditional discharge.

The Court of Appeal upheld the Board's refusal of an absolute discharge but found the Board's reasoning for refusing a conditional discharge was unreasonable and remitted the matter for reconsideration of whether a conditional discharge was appropriate.

An appeal from a Divisional Court decision upholding a Tribunal award of damages to a farm equipment dealer against a manufacturer/distributor for improper non-renewal of a dealership agreement.

The core issue concerned the retrospective application of Ontario Regulation 123/06 (Dealership Agreements Regulation) to an existing dealership agreement and the proper interpretation of the mandatory renewal provisions.

The manufacturer provided notice of non-renewal under the original agreement terms, but the Tribunal found this non-compliant with the Regulation's mandatory process requiring disclosure of all reasons for non-renewal and an opportunity for the dealer to respond.

The Court of Appeal upheld the Tribunal's liability findings and damages award, dismissed the manufacturer's appeal, and allowed the dealer's cross-appeal on costs by restoring the Tribunal's costs award that had been quashed by the Divisional Court.

An employee who began working for a predecessor company in 1995 with an arrangement to work from home three days per week was informed in January 2017 that she could no longer work from home effective March 1, 2017.

The employee took the position that she had been constructively dismissed.

The motion judge found constructive dismissal based on two grounds: the breach of an essential term regarding work-from-home arrangements and the arbitrary setting of the employee's fourth quarter 2016 bonus.

The motion judge awarded 20.5 months of salary (less a 10% contingency), compensation for the underpaid bonus, and lost benefits.

The employer appealed; the employee cross-appealed regarding bonus entitlements during the notice period.

An appeal of an Ontario Review Board disposition maintaining a detention order for an individual found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder.

The appellant sought an absolute discharge but the Board continued the detention order at the Southwest Centre for Forensic Mental Health Care, finding the appellant presented a significant threat to public safety due to lack of insight into his condition, poor medication compliance without supervision, and substance abuse issues.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the Board's decision was supported by evidence and represented the least onerous and least restrictive disposition appropriate in the circumstances.

A homeowner appealed a lower court decision that upheld a greenhouse operator's use of storing and grinding wood on-site as an accessory use under the local zoning bylaw.

The homeowner sought a declaration that the wood storage and grinding operations violated the zoning bylaw.

The Court of Appeal upheld the lower court's decision, finding that storing and grinding wood for heating greenhouses constitutes a natural and normal incident of operating a greenhouse and therefore qualifies as an accessory use under the bylaw definition.

The court rejected the homeowner's argument that a restrictive interpretation of "naturally and normally incidental" was required.

The appellant appealed a sentence of 18 months incarceration (less pre-sentence credit) imposed for multiple offences including making false documents, possessing identity documents, using forged documents, possession of property obtained by crime, and trafficking in identity information.

Duty counsel argued the sentencing judge erred by failing to consider serious immigration consequences, specifically that the appellant faced deportation to the United Kingdom as a permanent resident.

The court dismissed the appeal, finding the sentence was fit given the appellant's extensive criminal record of 24 convictions for dishonesty and multiple failures to comply with community supervision orders.

The court rejected the argument that a conditional sentence should be imposed to preserve immigration appeal rights, holding that sentencing flexibility should not be misused to avoid collateral statutory consequences.

The appellants appealed the dismissal of their claim for a mandatory order requiring the respondents to relocate the venting of a furnace and hot water heater from the side to the top of the respondents' house.

The appellants had claimed that emissions from the side venting were obnoxious, caused fumes and vapours that made one appellant ill, caused ice buildup on their walkway, and posed potential future danger to their siding.

The trial judge found that the appellants' complaints did not constitute a substantial interference with their enjoyment of property under the law of nuisance, as the expert evidence was insufficient, health claims were unsupported by medical evidence, ice buildup was insignificant, and future damage claims were speculative.

The appellants did not appeal the dismissal of their damages claim but only the dismissal of the mandatory order claim.

The Court of Appeal found no merit in the appeal.

The appellants appealed from a Superior Court order that set aside a Master's decision permitting amendment of the Statement of Claim to substitute the Regional Municipality of York and Brennan Paving and Construction Ltd. for the originally named defendants based on misnomer.

The original claim arose from an accident allegedly caused by a pothole on McCowan Road.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the Master's inference that the substituted defendants would have known they were the intended defendants was not available on any reasonable view of the evidence.

The Notice of Claim and Statement of Claim, even when read together, were not capable of supporting such an inference without further inquiry.

The appellant appealed his conviction for assault relating to events on December 25, 2014.

The appellant had been acquitted of a separate assault charge relating to events in summer 2013.

The appellant and complainant were co-parenting their child and maintained a non-intimate relationship at the time of the alleged assault.

The appellant raised two grounds of appeal: first, that the trial judge materially misapprehended evidence regarding who invited the complainant to stay overnight, and second, that the trial judge improperly relied on a police officer's opinion regarding the complainant's expectations about police involvement.

The Court of Appeal dismissed both grounds and upheld the conviction.

The Ontario Media Development Corporation (OMDC) denied Pong Marketing and Promotions Inc.'s application for a digital media tax credit on the grounds that its sweepstakes games were developed primarily to promote the sale of phone cards rather than to educate, inform, or entertain users.

The Divisional Court majority found the OMDC's decision unreasonable, holding that "primary purpose" must be assessed from the user's perspective rather than the developer's motivation.

The Court of Appeal allowed the OMDC's appeal, finding that the OMDC's interpretation was reasonable and that the Divisional Court erred in applying a residual presumption in favour of the taxpayer.

The appellant appealed his conviction for theft and fraud, and his sentence of three years' custody with a restitution order of $125,000.

The appellant had managed his elderly mother's finances and depleted her retirement savings from approximately $557,000 to $83.43 over two and a half years.

The trial judge found the appellant had stolen at least $200,000.

On appeal, the appellant challenged the admission of two videotaped statements made by his mother to police and raised a Charter delay argument for the first time.

The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction and sentence, finding no error in the trial judge's admissibility ruling and declining to entertain the Charter argument raised for the first time on appeal.

The appellant appealed a disposition of the Ontario Review Board that found him to remain a significant threat to public safety and ordered a conditional discharge with monthly reporting requirements.

The appellant sought an absolute discharge.

The Court of Appeal upheld the Board's decision, finding that the Board's conclusion was reasonable based on evidence that the appellant intended to discontinue medication if absolutely discharged, had persistent persecutory delusions, and had a history of cannabis use that exacerbated his mental condition.

The court found it reasonable for the Board to conclude that absolute discharge would likely result in medication cessation, decompensation, and increased risk of threatening behaviour.

The appellant appealed a disposition of the Ontario Review Board that found him to remain a significant threat to public safety and ordered a conditional discharge with reporting and drug testing requirements.

The appellant, found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder for assault with a weapon in 2007, sought an absolute discharge.

The Court of Appeal upheld the Board's disposition, finding that the Board's conclusion that the appellant would likely discontinue antipsychotic medication, increase cannabis use, and decompensate into psychosis was supported by evidence, including the appellant's lack of insight into his need for medication and his history of drug use.