Christopher T. Shorey

The applicant sought directions for the administration of her late father's estate, specifically addressing concerns about the estate trustee's conduct and the sale of the deceased's residential property where a respondent resided.

The court provided directions for estate administration, ordered the estate trustee to produce documents and accounts, and set conditions for the sale of the property, including a deadline for the resident respondent to secure financing or vacate.

The court also addressed the applicant's access to the property and emphasized the need for respectful communication among parties.

This motion concerned the disclosure of documents from a solicitor's file related to an estate, with the defendants claiming solicitor-client and litigation privilege.

The plaintiff sought disclosure or court inspection to determine the validity of the privilege claims.

The court ordered certain documents to be produced for judicial inspection, specifically those where the claim for privilege was dubious or where the parties' interests might not have been adverse at the time of creation.

However, the court upheld the privilege claims for other documents, finding that the parties were clearly adverse in interest when those communications were made, thus dismissing the balance of the plaintiff's motion for those documents.

The applicant, as estate trustee, sought an order for the respondents to vacate a property owned by the deceased and to pay occupation rent.

The respondents, the deceased's son, his wife, and daughter, had been residing in the property since the deceased's death and refused to vacate.

The respondents' request for an adjournment was denied due to a history of delay and lack of substantive evidence.

The court found the respondents were unjustly enriched by their occupancy without payment and ordered them to pay occupation rent, calculated from April 1, 2020, to April 30, 2023, with a reduction for the applicant's own delay in prosecuting the matter.

The daughter was not held monetarily responsible.

The court also ordered vacant possession and awarded costs to the applicant.

An appeal concerning the constitutionality of security screening measures implemented at police headquarters.

The chief of police instituted a security protocol requiring all persons entering the building to pass through metal detection and bag screening.

A resident who regularly attended public meetings of the police services board refused to submit to screening and was denied entry.

The application judge found the security protocol violated freedom of expression rights and was not prescribed by law.

The appellate court reversed, holding that while the protocol limited freedom of expression, it was prescribed by law through the occupier's common law powers and the statutory duty to ensure safety under the Occupiers' Liability Act, and was justified as a reasonable limit under the Charter.

The appellant appealed from a motion judge's order denying her motion to set aside a summary judgment award of $466,420.22 granted against her for fraud and theft.

The appellant argued she was not properly served with the Statement of Claim and therefore lacked an opportunity to defend.

The Court of Appeal upheld the motion judge's decision to deny the motion to set aside, finding the appellant was responsible for failing to update her address for service and had actual notice of the proceedings.

However, the Court of Appeal found merit in the appellant's challenge to the quantification of damages and reduced the award to $289,740.39 by correcting three calculation errors relating to the appellant's fractional ownership interest in property and personal expense claims.

The plaintiff, a former dental student, sued the University of Toronto and individual professors for breach of contract, negligence, and breach of fiduciary duty following her withdrawal from an Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and Anaesthesia program due to substandard academic performance.

The defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing the court lacked jurisdiction over academic matters, the plaintiff had resolved the dispute by voluntarily withdrawing from the program without academic penalty, and the claim was statute-barred by the Limitations Act.

The court granted summary judgment, dismissing the action on all three grounds.

It found that the essential character of the plaintiff's claims related to academic evaluation, which falls under the exclusive jurisdiction of the University's internal appeal process.

Furthermore, the court determined that the plaintiff's acceptance of the offer to withdraw without academic penalty constituted a binding agreement to resolve her academic dispute, precluding a subsequent action.

Finally, the court held that the plaintiff had sufficient knowledge of the facts to commence her claim by June 2009 at the latest, making her September 2011 action outside the two-year limitation period.

The appellant tenant appealed an order quashing its appeal from an arbitration award determining fair market rental under a 99-year ground lease.

The central issue was whether the parties' appeal rights were limited to questions of law with leave, as provided in the Arbitration Act, 1991, or whether broader appeal rights existed under the original Lease provisions referencing the Arbitrations Act, R.S.O. 1970.

The Court of Appeal upheld the motion judge's decision, finding that the Arbitration Agreement was a stand-alone agreement governing appeal rights and that the parties' appeal rights were limited to questions of law with leave under the 1991 Act.

The City of Toronto brought a motion to quash an appeal by Brookfield from an arbitration award determining the fair market rental for a commercial property.

The court held that under the arbitration agreement and the Arbitration Act, 1991, the parties' appeal rights were limited to questions of law with leave.

The court found that Brookfield's grounds of appeal, which related to valuation theories, lease rates, and contractual interpretation, raised questions of fact or mixed fact and law, not questions of law.

Consequently, the motion to quash the appeal was granted.