Christine Wadsworth

The court approved a $30 million settlement in a class action brought by shareholders of Aphria Inc. against the company and two of its officers, alleging misrepresentations in public disclosures about major business acquisitions.

The settlement was reached on the eve of trial after extensive discovery and negotiation, with the court finding the terms fair and reasonable given the risks of trial and potential insolvency proceedings.

The court also approved class counsel fees, disbursements, a levy to the Class Proceedings Fund, and an honorarium for the representative plaintiff.

The plaintiff sued the defendant surgeon for medical malpractice following a brachial plexus injury sustained during shoulder replacement surgery.

The sole issue was whether the plaintiff proved surgical negligence.

The court concluded that the injury was more likely than not the result of surgical negligence, specifically due to excessive force or prolonged stretch applied to the arm during the glenoid exposure phase of the surgery.

The court found for the plaintiff, dismissing the defendant's arguments regarding non-negligent causes and emphasizing that while a bad outcome alone does not prove negligence, the extreme rarity and nature of the injury provided strong circumstantial evidence of a breach of the standard of care.

The plaintiff sought leave to amend her Statement of Claim to particularize allegations of sexual assault and to plead similar fact evidence against a former pediatric doctor.

The court granted leave for the particularization of the assault but dismissed the motion to plead similar facts.

The dismissal was based on Section 36(3) of the Regulated Health Professions Act, 1991, which prohibits the admissibility of records from disciplinary proceedings in civil actions, and the principle that pleadings should contain material facts, not evidence.

The court also addressed the plaintiff's use of initials and awarded costs to the defendants.

The Joint Liquidators of Stanford International Bank Limited (SIB) appealed the dismissal of their negligence claim against The Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD Bank).

SIB was a vehicle for a massive Ponzi scheme.

The Liquidators claimed TD Bank was negligent in providing correspondent banking services by failing to detect and protect SIB from insider abuse.

The Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge's finding that TD Bank did not owe a novel duty of care to monitor SIB for internal fraud, as this fell outside the scope of TD Bank's undertaking as a correspondent bank.

The court also affirmed the trial judge's alternative finding that even if a duty existed, there was no breach of the standard of care, and that the trial judge's procedural rulings regarding witness recall were fair.

The appeal was dismissed.

The defendant, Dr. Yair Karas, moved for summary judgment, asserting that the plaintiff's medical malpractice action was statute-barred under the Limitations Act.

The plaintiff, Denise Bosse, alleged claims of uninformed consent and breach of standard of care related to Radial Keratotomy (RK) surgeries performed by the defendant between 1994 and 2005.

The court found that the plaintiff had actual and constructive knowledge of her injury, its cause by the defendant's acts, and that a legal proceeding was an appropriate remedy by July 11, 2011, when she filed a complaint with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.

Consequently, the two-year limitation period expired in July 2013, nine months before the Statement of Claim was issued in April 2014.

The court dismissed the plaintiff's argument that the standard of care claim was only discoverable upon receipt of an expert report in November 2013, emphasizing that knowledge of a breach of standard of care is not required for discoverability.

The defendant's motion for summary judgment was granted, and the action was dismissed.

The joint liquidators of Stanford International Bank (SIB) and a group of investors brought actions against TD Bank, SIB's primary U.S. dollar correspondent bank, for knowing assistance in breach of fiduciary duty and negligence.

The plaintiffs alleged that TD Bank should have detected and prevented the massive Ponzi scheme orchestrated by SIB's owner, Allen Stanford.

The Superior Court of Justice dismissed the actions, finding that TD Bank had no actual knowledge of the fraud and was not reckless or wilfully blind.

The court also held that TD Bank did not owe a novel duty of care to protect its customer from insider abuse, and even if it did, it met the standard of care of a reasonable banker during the relevant period.

The appellant obstetrician appealed a jury's finding of negligence and causation in a birth injury case, arguing the jury misapplied the "but for" test and that the verdict was unreasonable due to lack of evidence on timely delivery.

The appellant also claimed the trial judge improperly questioned witnesses.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, affirming the jury's application of the "but for" test, finding the verdict reasonable based on expert evidence, and concluding the trial judge's questions were proper clarifications within established judicial protocol.

The defendants in a proposed privacy class action regarding a data breach brought a motion to transfer and stay four identical Small Claims Court actions.

The court held that under s. 13 of the Class Proceedings Act, the small claims should be temporarily stayed pending the outcome of the certification motion, as allowing them to proceed would circumvent the opt-out provisions of the Act.

However, the court declined to transfer the actions to the Superior Court, finding such a transfer premature until the certification motion is decided.

The appellant appealed his summary conviction for criminal harassment.

The trial judge had convicted the appellant based on two text messages sent consecutively to the complainant, finding they constituted 'repeated communication'.

The Superior Court of Justice allowed the appeal, holding that two text messages sent at the same time constitute a single communication, not repeated communication.

The court also found the trial judge's conclusions that the complainant was harassed and that her fear was objectively reasonable were unreasonable, given the lack of threats and the context of the messages.

The conviction was quashed and an acquittal entered.

The respondent's husband died during a follow-up angiogram as part of a clinical trial.

The respondent sued the principal investigator, Dr. Strauss, for negligence and breach of fiduciary duty.

The jury found breach of standard of care but no causation in negligence.

The trial judge found breach of an ad hoc fiduciary duty and awarded damages, stating causation was removed from the analysis in the fiduciary context.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, holding that the trial judge erred by not examining causation in the fiduciary context.

The Court found no causal link between the alleged fiduciary breach and the loss, relying on the jury's finding on causation in the negligence claim, as the claims were based on substantially the same conduct.

The action was dismissed.

The plaintiffs, three Russian cyclists, sued the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and Richard McLaren for damages, alleging they were falsely implicated in a state-sponsored doping scheme and wrongfully excluded from the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

The defendants moved for summary judgment to dismiss the action on the grounds that the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) had exclusive jurisdiction and that the action was an abuse of process.

The Superior Court of Justice granted the motion, finding that the essential character of the dispute fell within the broad arbitration clauses of the Olympic Charter and the athletes' entry forms.

The court also held that the action was an abuse of process as the plaintiffs were attempting to re-litigate a dispute they had already brought before the CAS.

Following an obstetrical malpractice trial where the jury found the defendant obstetrician 32% liable for the infant plaintiff's severe cerebral palsy, the defendant brought a motion under Rule 52.08 to dismiss the action or order a retrial.

The defendant argued the jury gave conflicting answers on causation and that there was no evidence to support their findings on the standard of care and delay in delivery.

The court dismissed the motion, finding the jury's use of the word 'contributed' did not conflict with the 'but for' causation test, and that there was ample expert evidence supporting the jury's conclusion that the defendant's failure to promptly prepare for an emergency c-section caused the infant's brain damage.

Judgment was ordered to be entered in accordance with the jury's verdict.

During an ongoing medical negligence trial involving a minor plaintiff who suffered severe brain damage at birth, the parties disputed the phrasing of the jury question on causation.

The plaintiffs argued for the phrase 'caused or contributed to', relying on recent jurisprudence involving multiple tortfeasors.

The defendant argued for the conventional 'but for' standard.

The court held that the factual matrix was not so confusing as to preclude the conventional 'but for' test, and ordered the jury questions to be phrased using the 'but for' standard.

An appeal concerning a freedom of religion challenge to the medical and legal criteria for determining death.

The appellant's substitute decision-makers sought to prevent the withdrawal of life support and to rescind a death certificate based on the appellant's religious belief that death occurs only when the heart stops beating, not upon total brain death.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, upholding the application judge's conclusion that the claim could not succeed.

However, the court provided important guidance on the proper analytical approach to Charter rights and Charter values, clarifying that the appellant should have been presumed to be a Charter rights holder for purposes of the substantive analysis, and that the application judge erred in her methodology regarding freedom of religion analysis and Charter values application to the common law.

The plaintiff brought a medical malpractice action against two physicians following the death of her father.

The plaintiff, acting as her father's substitute decision-maker, had requested that he be treated as 'full code'.

However, the physicians determined that the patient was actively dying and that CPR would almost certainly not benefit him and would only cause harm.

They wrote a 'do not resuscitate' order without the plaintiff's prior consent.

The plaintiff claimed damages under the Family Law Act and for nervous shock.

The Superior Court of Justice dismissed the action, finding that the physicians met the standard of care, that writing a DNR order is not a 'treatment' requiring consent under the Health Care Consent Act, and that the physicians did not owe a duty of care to the plaintiff that would conflict with their paramount duty to their patient.

The plaintiffs, three Russian cyclists, sued the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and Richard McLaren for damages related to their exclusion from the 2016 Olympic Games.

The defendants brought Rule 21 motions to dismiss or permanently stay the proceeding for lack of jurisdiction and abuse of process, and to strike the statement of claim against McLaren.

The court found that resolving the jurisdictional issues would require extensive fact-finding, including assessing conflicting expert opinions and credibility, which exceeds the scope of a Rule 21 motion.

Consequently, the Rule 21.01(3) motions were ordered to be reconstituted as Rule 20 summary judgment motions or a trial of issues, and McLaren's Rule 21.01(1)(b) motion was deferred.

This application concerned the legal definition of death and the withdrawal of life support for Shalom Ouanounou, a devout Orthodox Jew, who was declared brain dead but whose family believed he was alive under Jewish law.

The applicant sought an injunction to prevent the withdrawal of life support, rescission of the initial death certificate, and a declaration that the Consent and Capacity Board had jurisdiction over such disputes.

Following Ouanounou's natural death, the court considered whether the application was moot.

Citing a recent decision in *McKitty v. Hayani*, which addressed similar issues, the court found the application moot as there was no longer a live controversy and declined to exercise its discretion to hear the academic issues.

The plaintiff, Karen Stirrett, sought damages for negligence and breach of fiduciary duty against three defendant doctors following the death of her spouse, David Stirrett, after an angiogram performed as part of the STREAM medical research study.

A jury found Dr. Strauss negligent but that his negligence was not causative of the death.

The court, sitting without a jury for the equitable claim, found that Dr. Strauss, as the principal investigator, owed and breached a fiduciary duty to David Stirrett by failing to disclose critical changes to the study protocol, funding, and participant numbers, which would have influenced David Stirrett's informed consent.

The court held that causation is not a requirement for recovery in breach of fiduciary duty.

Judgment was awarded in favour of the plaintiff against Dr. Strauss, while the actions against Dr. Cheema and Dr. Sheth were dismissed.

The plaintiff, IMG Canada Limited, sued General Motors of Canada Limited and MacLaren McCann Canada Inc. for breach of an alleged oral two-year sponsorship agreement and, alternatively, for negligent misrepresentation.

IMG claimed an oral contract was formed on November 3, 2015, for Cadillac's sponsorship of Taste of Toronto 2016 and 2017.

The court found no oral agreement due to a lack of certainty of essential terms (specifically price) and no intention to create a legally binding agreement, as evidenced by ongoing negotiations and the requirement for a formal written contract.

The negligent misrepresentation claim, alleging Momentum failed to communicate Cadillac's concerns, was also dismissed because the plaintiff could not prove damages resulted from the alleged misrepresentation, as it was too late to mitigate losses by the time the misrepresentation occurred.

All claims were dismissed.

The appellant suffered a brain injury resulting in anterograde amnesia and confabulation.

The respondent psychiatrist found the appellant incapable of managing her property under the Substitute Decisions Act, 1992, a finding confirmed by the Consent and Capacity Board.

The appellant appealed to the Superior Court of Justice.

The court applied a reasonableness standard of review and dismissed the appeal, finding the Board's conclusion was supported by the evidence despite the appellant's limited assets.