David E. Wires

The appellant appealed a trial judge's decision to strike a jury notice on the grounds of complexity.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no basis to interfere with the trial judge's discretion given the multiplicity of causes of action, defendants, heads of damages, and interlocking legal and factual issues.

The appellants represented a class of individuals victimized by a gold delivery fraud, having deposited funds into a solicitor's trust account.

They alleged the Law Society of Upper Canada breached a duty of care by failing to properly investigate and monitor the solicitor's trust account after being notified of irregularities.

The Supreme Court of Canada applied the Anns/Kamloops test and held that the Law Society did not owe a prima facie duty of care to the appellants, who were not clients but participants in a third-party business promotion.

The Court further noted that even if a duty existed, it would be negated by residual policy considerations and the statutory immunity provided under the Law Society Act.

The Crown appealed an acquittal entered on appeal from a provincial offences conviction for practising as a public accountant without a licence.

The court held that a Certified General Accountant who prepared a stub financial statement for a share purchaser, and financial statements knowingly used by a bank, fell outside the management-accountant exemption in s. 34 because he had actual knowledge that third parties would use and rely on the statements.

The court further held that preparation of corporate income tax returns and attached financial statements did not constitute practising as a public accountant because the representations were those of the taxpayer, not the preparer.

A vagueness challenge to the statutory scheme under s. 7 of the Charter failed.

The acquittal was set aside and the conviction restored.

In an appeal arising from Rule 20 and 21 motions, the appellants challenged an order dismissing their action against the executors of a deceased solicitor's estate arising from losses in a gold delivery contract investment scheme.

The court held that claims fitting within ss. 43 and 44 of the Limitations Act, including pleaded fraud, fraudulent breach of trust, recovery of trust property, accounting, and tracing relief, were not barred by the two-year limitation in s. 38(3) of the Trustee Act.

The court further held that the doctrine of plene administravit could not be determined against the appellants at this stage because it was not plain and obvious that the estate had no assets beyond $7,138, given possible insurance coverage and tracing remedies.

The appeal was allowed on the main dismissal issue, but dismissed as to two related interlocutory orders striking parts of the reply and refusing to strike an affidavit.

In an intended class proceeding arising from investor losses in a fraudulent gold scheme using a lawyer's trust account, the appellants alleged the regulator negligently failed to properly investigate and intervene after receiving a complaint about the lawyer's conduct.

The Court of Appeal applied the Anns/Kamloops framework and held that, even assuming sufficient proximity, statutory and judicial immunity, together with compelling policy considerations, negated any private law duty of care in negligence in relation to the regulator's investigatory and disciplinary functions.

Those functions were characterized as inherently judicial or quasi-judicial, and absent pleaded bad faith or malice no negligence action could lie.

The Rule 21 order striking the claim was upheld, as were the costs orders.