Carolyn J. Horkins

The landlord brought a motion to quash the tenant's appeal of a Landlord and Tenant Board eviction order.

The eviction was ordered after the landlord sold the residential unit and the purchasers required it for personal use.

The tenant's appeal automatically stayed the eviction.

The Divisional Court found that the tenant's grounds of appeal challenged findings of fact and did not raise any extricable questions of law as required by section 201 of the Residential Tenancies Act.

The court quashed the appeal, lifted the stay, and ordered the immediate enforcement of the eviction.

The tenant brought a motion in the Divisional Court for an extension of time to appeal a previous Divisional Court order that had quashed her appeals from the Landlord and Tenant Board.

The court dismissed the motion for lack of jurisdiction, noting that appeals from the Divisional Court lie to the Court of Appeal with leave.

Finding the tenant's conduct—including repeatedly trespassing after eviction and filing false applications with the Board—to be a continuing abuse of process, the court prohibited the tenant from commencing further proceedings in the Superior Court without leave and awarded costs to the landlords.

The appellants appealed a Master's order that varied a previous 'last chance' order requiring the respondent to post security for costs.

The previous order stated that if the respondent failed to post security by a specific deadline, the action would be dismissed.

The respondent failed to comply, but the Master subsequently issued a new order extending the deadline and increasing the security amount.

The Superior Court allowed the appeal, finding that the Master was functus officio once the original order was issued, entered, and breached, resulting in the dismissal of the action.

The Master therefore had no jurisdiction to vary the order or grant a stay.

The landlords brought a motion to dismiss or quash the tenant's appeal of a Landlord and Tenant Board eviction order.

The Board had ordered eviction after finding the tenant deliberately started a fire at the residential complex.

The tenant filed a notice of appeal but took no further steps to perfect it.

The Divisional Court quashed the appeal, finding it raised no question of law as required by s. 210(1) of the Residential Tenancies Act, and was devoid of merit.

The stay of the eviction order was lifted and immediate vacant possession was ordered.

The appellant brought a motion to transfer his appeal of a summary judgment order to the Court of Appeal, after his process server mistakenly filed the Notice of Appeal in the Divisional Court.

The court applied the Dunnington test under s. 110 of the Courts of Justice Act to determine whether to transfer the appeal.

Finding that the appeal lacked merit and merely sought to reweigh the motion judge's factual findings without identifying any extricable error of law, the court concluded the appeal was frivolous.

The motion to transfer was dismissed with costs awarded to the respondent.

The City appealed an Ontario Municipal Board decision awarding the respondent disturbance damages, executive time, and costs arising from a trespass that occurred four years prior to the formal expropriation of a portion of the respondent's property.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding it was reasonable for the Board to conclude there was a causal nexus between the trespass and the expropriation.

The Court also upheld the Board's discretionary awards for executive time and pre-expropriation costs.

The appellant, a veterinarian, appealed decisions of the Discipline Committee finding him guilty of professional misconduct related to a corrective cherry eye surgery on a dog, and the subsequent penalty and costs decisions.

The appellant raised several procedural and substantive grounds, including reasonable apprehension of bias, procedural fairness at the investigatory stage, and the standard of proof.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding no merit to the procedural complaints and affording deference to the Tribunal's findings on evidence, penalty, and costs.

Costs of the appeal were awarded to the respondent in the reduced amount of $6,000.

The applicant sought judicial review of an appraisal award made under section 128 of the Insurance Act, alleging a reasonable apprehension of bias by the umpire.

The applicant argued she had insufficient time to present her case, the insurer's appraiser challenged his own consultant's evidence, and the umpire met privately with the insurer's appraiser.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, noting that the appraisal process is a valuation, not an arbitration, and does not require a formal hearing.

The court found no reasonable apprehension of bias, particularly as the private meetings were demanded by the applicant herself.

The appellants appealed a trial decision finding that they wrongfully dismissed the respondent.

They argued the trial judge erred in law by failing to analyze why the respondent's manipulation of a security camera did not constitute dishonesty justifying termination for just cause under the McKinley framework.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding the trial judge explicitly concluded the respondent did not engage in dishonest behaviour or falsify work hours, and correctly held that manipulating the camera alone did not constitute just cause.

The appellant bank appealed a Small Claims Court decision awarding the respondent $25,000 in damages for an allegedly improper power of sale.

The trial judge found the bank failed to provide proper notice under the Mortgages Act because it sent the notice of sale to the mortgaged property, knowing the mortgagors were out of the country.

The Divisional Court allowed the appeal, holding that under s. 33(1) of the Mortgages Act, a mortgagee is entitled to serve the notice of sale at the specific address provided for service in the mortgage document, regardless of whether the mortgagee knows the mortgagor is living elsewhere.

The trial judgment was set aside.

The landlord appealed a Landlord and Tenant Board decision finding they illegally locked out the tenant by failing to provide replacement keys after the rental unit was repaired following a fire.

The landlord argued the tenancy was frustrated, the remedy was miscalculated, and the Board denied procedural fairness.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding the frustration and remedy issues were questions of mixed fact and law not subject to appeal, and the Board properly exercised its discretion regarding procedural fairness and bias allegations.

The appellant wife appealed an order directing the sale of the jointly owned matrimonial home prior to trial.

The respondent husband had brought a motion for the sale to access his equity.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding that the motion judge correctly applied the law that a joint tenant has a prima facie right to partition and sale.

The wife failed to provide sufficient evidence that her potential equalization claims would be prejudiced by the sale, given the significant equity in the home.

The appellant father appealed a trial judge's decision on a motion to change a final custody order.

The trial judge had found a material change in circumstances but ordered that the parties continue to have joint custody of the child with a parallel parenting regime, and that the child's primary residence remain with the respondent mother.

The father argued he should have been granted sole custody.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding that the trial judge made no errors of law, her findings of fact were supported by the evidence, and she made no palpable and overriding error in determining that joint custody remained in the child's best interests.

The self-represented appellant brought a motion to set aside an order of the motion judge, which had dismissed his motion to set aside the Registrar's administrative dismissal of his motion for leave to appeal.

The underlying action involved allegations of professional negligence against his former counsel.

The Divisional Court found that the motion judge correctly applied the test from Sickinger, which requires consideration of the merits of the appeal.

Finding no error in the motion judge's conclusion that the proposed appeal lacked merit, the Divisional Court dismissed the motion with costs.

The landlord brought a motion to quash the tenants' appeal of a Landlord and Tenant Board eviction order.

The tenants had not paid rent since November 2017 and admitted to withholding rent to invest in their business.

The Divisional Court found the appeal was manifestly devoid of merit as it raised no questions of law, but rather challenged factual findings and procedural matters from a separate application that was not appealed.

The court quashed the appeal, lifted the stay of the eviction order, and awarded costs to the landlord.

The applicant sought judicial review of a Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario decision dismissing his application as out of time, and a subsequent reconsideration decision.

The Tribunal found the application was filed outside the one-year limitation period under the Human Rights Code and there was no evidence the delay was incurred in good faith.

The Divisional Court dismissed the applicant's motion to admit fresh evidence, finding it did not meet the test for admission on judicial review.

The Court held there was no denial of procedural fairness and the Tribunal's decisions were reasonable, dismissing the application for judicial review.

The applicant sought judicial review of a decision by the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) to screen out his complaints against Toronto Police Service officers.

The OIPRD declined to proceed because it lacked jurisdiction over events occurring before its creation in 2009, and because the passage of time made it unlikely that an investigation into a 2013 incident would find misconduct.

The Divisional Court found the OIPRD's decision reasonable based on the record and dismissed the application.

The appellant, a lawyer, appealed a Small Claims Court decision dismissing his claim for unpaid legal fees against his family's business.

The appellant argued he had a historical oral retainer with the company, established when his father ran it, which should apply to the disputed accounts.

The trial judge found no oral agreement existed for the specific accounts, noting the appellant delayed billing until after his sister took over the company and failed to inform her of the liability.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding no palpable and overriding error in the trial judge's factual findings and rejecting the appellant's new argument of unjust enrichment because it was not pleaded at trial.

The parties' motions concerned child support, daycare expenses, and the removal of belongings following their separation.

The applicant mother sought interim child support and daycare contributions retroactive to the application date.

The respondent father sought to dismiss the application, reduce child support due to alleged undue hardship from supporting his adult children, and have costs owed to him paid directly rather than credited against arrears.

The court dismissed the father's motions, finding no undue hardship, and ordered child support based on his 2017 income.

The court also ordered the father to pay his proportionate share of daycare expenses and directed that the costs owed by the mother be applied as a credit against the father's child support and daycare arrears, prioritizing the children's financial needs.

Orders were also made regarding the removal of the father's belongings and increased access to the youngest child.

The City of Toronto sought judicial review of an arbitrator's decision that reduced the City's recovery of fraudulently obtained health benefits from a former employee by 50%.

The Divisional Court quashed the arbitrator's decision, finding a denial of procedural fairness because the arbitrator rejected the application of the collective agreement's overpayment provision without giving the parties notice or an opportunity to make submissions.

The Court also found the arbitrator's decision unreasonable, as she erred in finding concurrent jurisdiction with the courts and misapplied the Negligence Act to reduce the recovery based on the employee's theoretical right to seek contribution from a co-fraudster.