Brennagh Smith

The appellants appealed a motion judge's order dismissing their claims against the Ministry of the Attorney General (MAG Respondents) and a libel claim against the Toronto Police Services Board (Police Respondents).

The Court of Appeal found no error in the motion judge's analysis, upholding the dismissal.

The claims against the MAG Respondents failed to disclose a reasonable cause of action, citing Crown attorney immunity from negligence and a lack of pleaded intent for torts like malicious prosecution, misfeasance in public office, and conspiracy.

The libel claim against the Police Respondents was struck for non-compliance with notice requirements and limitation periods under the Libel and Slander Act.

The appeal was dismissed, and costs were awarded against the appellant Mohamed Abdullahi.

The appellants appealed a jury verdict awarding $55,000 in damages following a motor vehicle accident, arguing the assessment was inconsistent, unreasonable, and out of proportion to the injuries.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding no obvious inconsistency in the jury's findings.

The court held that the verdict was reasonable, as the jury was entitled to assess the plaintiff's credibility and prefer the evidence of the respondent's medical expert over the appellants' expert.

The applicant, a residential tenant living above an unlicensed cannabis retail store, brought an application under section 18(4) of the Cannabis Control Act to lift an interim closure order that barred entry to the entire premises.

The premises had been repeatedly closed by law enforcement due to illegal cannabis sales, but the operators continually breached the closures.

The court dismissed the application, finding the applicant failed to satisfy the burden of proving that, if access were granted, the premises would not continue to be used for illegal cannabis sales with the landlord's permission.

Following the successful striking of the self-represented plaintiff's libel claim on a Rule 21 motion, the successful police defendants sought costs.

The defendants claimed partial indemnity costs of $11,345.00 but voluntarily reduced their request to $4,000.00 in consideration of the plaintiff's self-represented status and ability to pay.

The court awarded the requested $4,000.00, ordering it payable in any event of the cause rather than forthwith, as the broader action was continuing.

The plaintiff, Mohamed Abdullahi, along with Faiza Ali, sued the Children's Aid Society, Toronto Police Service Board, and the Ministry of the Attorney General and various employees after Abdullahi's acquittal on sexual assault charges.

The defendants brought motions to strike portions of the Amended Statement of Claim.

The Police Defendants sought to strike the libel claim for failure to provide timely notice and for being statute-barred under the Libel and Slander Act.

The Attorney General Defendants sought to strike the action against them entirely, arguing that the Ministry was not a suable entity, Crown Attorneys were immune from personal liability, and no reasonable cause of action was pleaded, particularly lacking material facts to support intentional misconduct beyond negligence.

The court dismissed the libel action against the Police Defendants and dismissed the entire action against the Attorney General Defendants, while allowing other claims against the Police and Society Defendants to proceed.

The court also cancelled a scheduled summary judgment motion, deeming a trial necessary.

The respondent Anthony Novac and third-party respondents (collectively "Novac/Sonco") brought motions for a preservation order and security for costs, respectively, against the applicant Jennifer Ann Leitch.

These motions followed a prior judgment where Leitch was ordered to pay significant costs.

Anthony sought a preservation order for Leitch's assets, including the Caledon farm property, and alternatively, its transfer to him based on a trust claim.

Novac/Sonco sought security for costs and preservation of the farm and artwork.

Leitch opposed, wishing to sell the farm and arguing against priority for creditors and lack of grounds for a Mareva injunction.

The court dismissed Anthony's request for the farm's transfer but granted the preservation orders for the farm and artwork in Leitch's possession, finding that Leitch's financial circumstances and prior unreasonable conduct justified securing the substantial costs awards.

The applicant, Jennifer Ann Leitch, brought a motion for a declaration of conspiracy and damages, while the respondent, Anthony James Charles Novac, brought a cross-motion for a decrease in child and spousal support.

The applicant's motion was dismissed, and the respondent's motion was granted.

This ruling addresses the significant costs sought by the successful respondent and third-party respondents (Novac/Sonco) against the applicant.

The court considered the parties' offers to settle, the complexity of the issues, the applicant's unreasonable litigation strategy, and the proportionality of the costs.

The court rejected the applicant's arguments for reducing costs based on the respondent's alleged misrepresentation of income or her limited means, emphasizing that the applicant, a litigation lawyer, understood the risks.

The applicant sought spousal support after the end of a 14-year relationship with the wealthy respondent.

The respondent argued they were not spouses because they maintained separate residences in Toronto.

The court found that the parties lived together in a conjugal relationship, noting they spent summers together at a cottage, wintered in Florida, and the respondent treated the applicant as his wife and financially supported her.

The court awarded the applicant indefinite spousal support of $53,077 per month and retroactive support of $421,795.12, finding a strong pattern of economic dependency.

The applicant wife alleged that her former husband and his family (the third-party respondents) engaged in a complex civil conspiracy to hide his income and assets through corporate restructuring and family trusts, thereby defeating her claims for child and spousal support.

The third-party respondents brought a motion for summary judgment to dismiss the conspiracy claims, while the applicant brought a cross-motion for partial summary judgment.

The husband also brought a motion to retroactively reduce his interim support obligations, arguing his income had materially decreased.

The Superior Court of Justice granted the third-party respondents' motion, dismissing the conspiracy claims, finding that the corporate transactions were undertaken for legitimate tax and estate planning purposes, not to harm the applicant.

The court also granted the husband's motion to vary support, significantly reducing his child and spousal support obligations retroactively to January 1, 2017, based on a material change in his income.

Following a lengthy high-net-worth family and trust trial, the court passed the family trust accounts and dismissed objections alleging that the trustee owed additional sums to the trust or that the trust held an equity interest in the payor's operating company.

Although the trustee had breached fiduciary duties by commingling funds and failing to maintain proper records, the court found the beneficiaries had received benefits exceeding the trust corpus and limited the remedy to a personal costs order against the trustee for the passing of accounts.

The court fixed disputed valuation issues for equalization, including the matrimonial home, cottage, boats, motorcycle, and the payor's business interests, rejected unequal division under s. 5(6) of the Family Law Act, and ordered an equalization payment with prejudgment interest.

Applying the Divorce Act and Child Support Guidelines, the court set the recipient's investment-based income, fixed the payor's support income at $5.9 million, ordered indefinite spousal support of $125,000 per month, and awarded limited summer child support for the youngest child.

This decision addresses costs following a three-day trial where the applicant's claim for spousal support and imputation of income to the respondent was dismissed.

The court applied the pre-July 1, 2018 Family Law Rules, particularly Rule 24, which presumes a successful party is entitled to costs.

Factors considered included the importance and complexity of issues, parties' behaviour, lawyer rates, time spent, and financial circumstances.

Despite the respondent's success, the court adjusted the quantum of costs, taking into account the similar financial circumstances of both parties and the reasonableness of the applicant's litigation, ultimately awarding the respondent $22,052.68.

The applicant sought an extension of time to bring a motion to vary or set aside an order that affirmed the Registrar's dismissal of his judicial review application for delay.

The underlying application concerned police street checks.

The Divisional Court dismissed the motion, finding that the applicant's delay in seeking the extension was unreasonable, there was no reasonable explanation for the entirety of the delay, the respondents would suffer prejudice, and the merits of the appeal were not high.

The applicants sought certiorari to quash witness summonses issued under the Provincial Offences Act, alleging abuse of process due to city officials misleading them into providing information.

The court dismissed the application, finding that the applicants could not demonstrate sufficient personal prejudice, that the trial court was the appropriate forum to address abuse of process arguments (which primarily protect accused persons), and that interlocutory prerogative relief should be granted only rarely to prevent delay and fragmentation of quasi-criminal proceedings, especially in light of R. v. Jordan.

The applicant sought spousal support, arguing that the respondent was intentionally unemployed and that an income of $66,724 should be imputed to him.

The respondent had been terminated from his employment as a stationary engineer due to performance issues stemming from cognitive decline and memory loss.

The court applied the Drygala test and found that the applicant failed to prove the respondent was intentionally unemployed, as his termination was due to an inability to perform the job, not a voluntary choice to avoid work.

The application for spousal support was dismissed, without prejudice to future claims if the respondent's circumstances change.

The plaintiff sought specific performance of a rent-to-own agreement for a home on the Whitesand First Nation reserve after the First Nation allocated the home to another member.

The plaintiff had vacated the home years earlier due to an abusive relationship but continually expressed her intent to return.

The court found that the plaintiff had not abandoned the home and that the First Nation breached the agreement by failing to address her requests in good faith.

However, the court declined to order specific performance, finding it inequitable to displace the current innocent occupant and noting the plaintiff's delay.

Instead, the court awarded the plaintiff $18,000 in damages for breach of contract and $5,000 for lost personal property.

The applicant alleged racial discrimination by the Toronto Police Service.

In this interim decision, the Tribunal addressed three requests for orders: the respondents' request to bifurcate the hearing, the applicant's request for CCTV footage from the Toronto Community Housing Corporation, and the OHRC's request for production of various police records.

The Tribunal granted the bifurcation request, ordering the hearing to proceed in three stages.

The applicant's request for CCTV footage was dismissed because the footage no longer existed.

The OHRC's requests for production were partially granted; however, the Tribunal found that section 95 of the Police Services Act prevented the disclosure of complaints made under Part V of that Act.

The applicant father brought an urgent motion for joint custody and equal parenting time after the respondent mother left the matrimonial home with their 16-month-old child.

The mother sought to dismiss the motion as it was brought before a case conference, contrary to Rule 14(4).

The court found it was in the interest of justice under Rule 14(4.2) to hear the motion prior to a case conference, given the 2.5-month delay until the first available date.

The court ordered an interim, interim schedule of alternating days of care for each parent until the return of the motion.

The applicant alleged that the respondent police service discriminated against him based on ethnic origin, creed, sex, and disability during his arrest.

The respondent brought a motion to dismiss the application for having no reasonable prospect of success.

The Tribunal found that the applicant's evidence was vague and failed to establish any link between the alleged mistreatment and the prohibited grounds under the Human Rights Code.

The application was dismissed.

The applicant requested an adjournment of the scheduled hearing because a change in his medication rendered him not fully lucid.

The respondents consented to the adjournment on the condition that it be rescheduled for the next available dates and that any further delay require medical evidence.

The Tribunal granted the adjournment, finding that the sudden medical issue constituted exceptional circumstances, and directed that the new hearing dates would be peremptory on the applicant.

The applicant filed a human rights application alleging discrimination by the respondents regarding a police stop.

The respondents filed an incomplete Response and a Request for an Order During Proceedings (RFOP) seeking to dismiss the application as untimely under s. 34(1) of the Human Rights Code.

The applicant filed an RFOP requesting the respondents be ordered to file a complete Response.

The Tribunal held that while it has the flexibility to consider jurisdictional issues without a complete Response, a complete Response would assist in determining the timeliness issue in this case.

The respondents were ordered to file a complete Response.