Eduardo Chee-Cheung Fernandes Lam

The respondent father brought a motion for summary judgment to enforce unsigned Minutes of Settlement purportedly reached at a settlement conference.

The applicant mother opposed, arguing no binding agreement was reached until the Minutes were signed.

The court found that while the parties had agreed on the substantive terms, the objective evidence demonstrated that the execution of the formal Minutes was an essential procedural term necessary for the formation of the contract.

As the Minutes were never executed due to a disagreement over a specific clause, there was a genuine issue requiring a trial.

The motion for summary judgment was dismissed, and the respondent was granted leave to bring a motion for expanded parenting time.

The offender, who was 18 years old at the time of the offences, was sentenced for attempted murder, conspiracy to commit forcible confinement, unauthorized possession of a loaded firearm, possession of a firearm while prohibited, and trafficking in a controlled substance.

The court considered the offender's cognitive impairments, background of poverty, and harsh presentence custody conditions as mitigating factors against the serious aggravating factors of the offences, which included a home invasion and the use of a firearm.

Applying the totality principle, the court imposed a global sentence of 14 years, which was reduced to 8 years and 3 months after applying credit for presentence custody.

The defendant, Nuruddin Janmohamed, brought a motion to strike the plaintiff's claim for misrepresentation or, alternatively, for summary judgment, arguing lack of standing, no misrepresentation, no damages, and that the claim was statute-barred.

The plaintiff, Mahamud Husein, alleged misrepresentation regarding an insurance policy's premium increases.

The court dismissed both motions, finding the claim disclosed a cause of action for negligent misrepresentation and that genuine issues requiring a trial existed, particularly concerning the alleged misrepresentations, reliance, and damages.

The limitation period argument was also dismissed.

The applicant wife sought an order striking the respondent husband's pleadings or compelling disclosure and an expert meeting.

The respondent husband sought to vary a spousal support order and for the sale of the matrimonial home.

The court dismissed the wife's request to strike pleadings and her expert meeting request, but ordered reciprocal questioning with experts present.

The husband's motion to vary spousal support was dismissed, as he failed to demonstrate a substantial change in circumstances or compelling evidence to warrant a variation of the temporary order.

The matrimonial home sale was resolved by consent.

The court declined to award costs to the wife, finding her rejection of expert collaboration unreasonable.

The applicants brought a pretrial motion challenging a search warrant and a Part VI wiretap authorization.

The court found that the applicant had standing to challenge the search warrant for a short-term rental unit, as he could rely on the affiant's theory in the Information to Obtain (ITO) which alleged he rented the unit.

The court also held that the applicants do not require leave to cross-examine officers regarding the 'resort-to' provision of the wiretap authorization, as the Crown bears the burden of establishing lawful interception when a Charter challenge is raised.

The accused, facing firearms charges, brought pre-trial motions challenging the validity of a search warrant and a warrantless search of an Instagram account under s. 8 of the Charter.

They sought further disclosure and leave to cross-examine the affiant, arguing that a confidential informant was actually a police agent.

The court dismissed the disclosure and cross-examination motions, finding no evidence to support the police agent theory.

The court upheld the search warrant, concluding the information provided by informants was compelling, credible, and corroborated.

The court also dismissed the challenge to the Instagram search, finding the accused lost his reasonable expectation of privacy by accepting a stranger's follow request.

The appellant appealed a proposal by the Registrar of the Condominium Management Regulatory Authority of Ontario to refuse to grant him a limited licence.

The parties reached a resolution and entered into Minutes of Settlement.

The Licence Appeal Tribunal approved the settlement, disposing of the matter without a hearing.

Under the settlement, the appellant withdrew his application and appeal, and undertook not to reapply for a licence before January 22, 2021.

The appellant appealed a trial judgment awarding $1,070,000 to the respondent in a dispute over ownership of a commercial property on Parliament Street in Toronto.

The trial judge found that the father had gifted the property to his daughter, and therefore the proceeds of sale belonged to her.

The Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge's factual findings, finding they met the three criteria for a valid gift and were supported by the evidence.

The appeal was dismissed with costs awarded to the respondent.

The plaintiff corporation, solely owned by the daughter of the deceased, brought an action against the deceased's estate to recover $1,070,000.

The deceased had incorporated the plaintiff to purchase a commercial property for his daughter.

After the property was sold for a profit, the deceased withdrew the funds from the plaintiff's bank account for his own use.

The estate argued the plaintiff was a bare trustee and the deceased was the beneficial owner.

The court found no documentary or credible testimonial evidence of a trust, concluding the corporation and its funds belonged entirely to the daughter.

Judgment was granted to the plaintiff for the full amount taken.

The applicants, charged with fraud over $5,000 in relation to an alleged Ponzi scheme, brought a Rowbotham application seeking state-funded counsel after being denied Legal Aid.

The court dismissed the application, finding that the applicants failed to provide full and transparent disclosure of their financial circumstances to prove indigency.

Furthermore, the court held that given the applicants' high level of education, business experience, and demonstrated competence during the preliminary inquiry, representation by counsel was not essential to ensure a fair trial.

The applicants, owners of residential and additional parking units in a condominium, brought an application disputing the allocation of common expenses to their parking units and seeking access to financial information.

The court found that a previous order had already definitively ruled that parking units are subject to common expenses.

On the merits, the court interpreted the condominium's Declaration to clearly mandate common expense contributions from parking unit owners, as these are separate units.

The application was dismissed, and costs were fixed against the applicants, acknowledging some divided success on information access but the respondents' overall success on the main legal issue.

The accused pleaded guilty to numerous firearms offences including possession of a firearm with readily accessible ammunition, conspiracy to transfer firearms, transferring firearms, and possession of firearms for the purpose of transferring them.

Over a five‑month period, the accused used his valid firearms licence to legally purchase 47 handguns and transferred 43 of them to another individual, receiving payment for each purchase.

Several of the firearms were later recovered at crime scenes while many remained unrecovered.

The court considered aggravating factors including the scale of the trafficking and the risk posed to public safety, balanced against significant mitigating factors such as the accused’s youth, lack of criminal record, guilty plea, remorse, and strong prospects for rehabilitation.

The court concluded that denunciation and deterrence required a penitentiary sentence but that the Crown’s requested sentence was excessive.

A sentence of eight years’ imprisonment was imposed, subject to credit for pre‑sentence custody.

The Crown brought a certiorari application seeking to quash a preliminary inquiry judge’s decision discharging the accused on first degree murder and committing them only on second degree murder following the death of a child.

The Crown argued the preliminary inquiry judge failed to consider the whole of the evidence when assessing whether there was some evidence of planned and deliberate murder or murder while committing forcible confinement under ss. 231(2) and 231(5) of the Criminal Code.

The Superior Court held that the preliminary inquiry judge had reviewed the relevant evidence and determined that the circumstantial evidence did not permit a reasonable inference of planning, deliberation, or forcible confinement forming part of the same transaction as the killing.

Errors relating to the sufficiency of the evidence, even if wrong, are within the preliminary inquiry judge’s jurisdiction and do not justify certiorari.

The court found no jurisdictional error.