Eleanore A. Cronk

The appellant school board appealed an order requiring it to indemnify the respondent employee for legal costs incurred during a workplace investigation into alleged expense fraud.

The employee's contract contained an indemnity clause for costs related to any 'proceeding', excluding cases of dishonesty.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no prima facie evidence of dishonesty was presented, the merits of the allegations were for arbitration, and the formal workplace investigation constituted a 'proceeding' under the broad wording of the contract.

The appellant, a dual-status offender found not criminally responsible (NCR) and serving two life sentences for sexual offences, appealed conditions imposed by the Ontario Review Board.

The Board ordered his continued detention at a secure forensic psychiatric facility with conditions restricting his unmonitored use of email and requiring staff escorts for community access.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that the conditions were reasonable and did not violate the appellant's section 8 Charter rights or the Mental Health Act, as an NCR detainee has a significantly diminished expectation of privacy in a secure institutional setting.

The respondent was found not criminally responsible for aggravated assault and other charges.

The Ontario Review Board granted him an absolute discharge, finding he no longer posed a significant risk to public safety.

The hospital appealed, seeking to introduce fresh evidence that the respondent had rapidly decompensated, resumed substance abuse, and become aggressive shortly after his discharge.

The Court of Appeal admitted the fresh evidence, finding it could reasonably have affected the board's decision as it undermined the factual foundation of the absolute discharge.

The appeal was allowed and the matter remitted to the board for a rehearing.

The young person appealed his convictions for possession of a weapon for the purpose of robbery and robbery with a weapon, as well as his sentence of nine months' custody and 12 months' probation.

The appellant argued the trial judge erred in assessing the complainant's credibility and that the verdict was unreasonable.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding the trial judge properly applied credibility principles and relied on corroborating independent evidence.

The sentence appeal was also dismissed, as the trial judge adequately considered the principles of the Youth Criminal Justice Act and the sentence was fit for a serious firearm offence.

The appellant was convicted of multiple fraud-related offences arising from a credit and debit card scheme.

At trial, the Crown relied heavily on the testimony of four former co-accused who had previously pled guilty based on agreed statements of fact implicating the appellant.

When these witnesses recanted their statements at trial, the trial judge admitted their prior statements for the truth of their contents under the K.G.B. framework.

The appellant appealed, arguing the statements should not have been admitted and that the trial judge's Vetrovec warning was inadequate.

The Court of Appeal held that while the statements met the test for threshold reliability, the Vetrovec warning failed to adequately explain to the jury the witnesses' strong motives to lie in their prior statements to obtain lenient sentences.

The appeal was allowed and a new trial ordered.

The appellant was convicted of aggravated assault, administering a noxious substance, and failing to provide the necessaries of life in relation to her two-year-old son.

At trial, the Crown relied on expert evidence from the Motherisk Program regarding hair testing to prove the child had ingested cocaine over a 14-month period.

On appeal, the appellant sought to introduce fresh expert evidence challenging the methodology and validity of the hair testing.

The Court of Appeal admitted the fresh evidence, finding it credible and potentially decisive.

The convictions related to cocaine ingestion were quashed and a new trial was ordered, but the order was stayed because the appellant had already served her sentence.

The appeal from the fracture-related convictions was abandoned.

The appellant was convicted of fraud, uttering a forged document, and breach of recognizance after amassing a large hotel bill and paying with a forged cheque.

Police conducted a warrantless search of his hotel room, which the trial judge found violated his s. 8 Charter rights, but the evidence was admitted under s. 24(2).

The appellant appealed his convictions and his consecutive four-year sentence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no error in the trial judge's application of the Grant factors and upholding the sentence given the appellant's extensive criminal record and the lack of a factual nexus between his various frauds.

The children's aid society appealed the dismissal of its child protection application regarding three children.

The respondent father brought a motion to quash the appeal, arguing there were no current protection concerns.

The Court of Appeal granted the motion to quash, finding that the appeal lacked merit and that, in the absence of any evidence of existing child protection concerns, proceeding with the appeal would be contrary to the best interests of the children and the administration of justice.

The appellant mother appealed an order quashing her appeal from an openness order regarding her biological daughter, who had been in protection for six years and placed for adoption.

The appellant sought to challenge the adoption placement and have the child placed with extended family.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that placement cannot be determined at an openness hearing, the child consented to the adoption and the openness order, and the appellant was attempting to relitigate previously determined issues.

The appellant submitted the lowest bid for a highway widening project but failed to declare the value of imported steel, rendering the bid non-compliant.

The Ministry of Transportation investigated, deemed the bid non-compliant, and awarded the contract to the second-lowest bidder.

The appellant sued for lost profits.

The Court of Appeal held that while a Contract A arose upon submission of the bid, the Ministry acted reasonably in refusing to waive the non-compliance.

Furthermore, an exculpatory clause in the tender documents barred the appellant's claim for damages arising from the non-acceptance of its bid.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant appealed his convictions for two counts of fraud under $5,000, arguing the trial judge erred by dismissing his post-conviction application to reopen the trial to introduce videotape evidence.

The appellant claimed the videotape showed the real perpetrator was someone else.

On consent of the Crown, the Court of Appeal reviewed the videotape and concluded there was a reasonable possibility of misidentification.

The appeal was allowed and a new trial was ordered to prevent a possible miscarriage of justice.

The respondent, a former equity partner of the appellant accounting firm, withdrew from the partnership to join a competitor.

The partnership agreement required a withdrawing partner to pay liquidated damages equal to two times their 'Permanent Capital'.

The appellants argued the permanent capital should be based on the partner's 'Anchor Capital' which included shareholder loans, while the respondent argued it was limited to the $10,000 fixed in his capital account following a capital conversion.

The trial judge agreed with the respondent, fixing liquidated damages at $20,000 and ordering the appellants to repay the respondent's shareholder loan and other entitlements.

The Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge's interpretation of the partnership agreement, finding no palpable and overriding error, but allowed the appeal in part to set aside a small award for management fees that lacked evidentiary support.

The appellant sought leave to appeal sentence following convictions for multiple sexual assaults against a child in respect of whom he occupied a position of trust and authority.

He argued the sentencing judge selected the wrong sentencing range because the assaults did not involve penetration and that a three-year penitentiary term should have been imposed.

The court held that, whether the starting point was three years or five years, the five-year sentence disclosed no error in principle, fell within the applicable range, and was not manifestly unfit given repeated assaults, grooming behaviour, exploitation of vulnerability, and trust-based abuse.

Leave to appeal sentence was granted, but the sentence appeal was dismissed.

In a pending conviction appeal involving child pornography offences, the Crown sought directions limiting full compliance with the Court of Appeal’s ineffective assistance protocol, and the self-represented appellant sought an order under s. 683(3) to examine or cross-examine former trial counsel.

The court held that the protocol is flexible and may be varied on a case-by-case basis, and it was unnecessary and inappropriate to make a preliminary merits determination of the ineffective assistance ground.

Given the existing record, the court permitted the Crown to decline the full fresh evidence process contemplated by the protocol, subject to any further order of the panel hearing the appeal.

The appellant’s request to examine or cross-examine former trial counsel was dismissed because the proposed questioning would not materially advance the claim.

The Crown appealed a stay of proceedings granted on the basis of alleged unreasonable delay in a prosecution for child pornography offences.

Applying the Morin framework, the court held that although the Crown's disclosure delay was disproportionate, only five and a half months of the total delay was unreasonable Crown delay, with the balance consisting of neutral intake time, defence delay, and acceptable institutional delay.

The court found the trial judge erred in the assessment of prejudice by failing to distinguish prejudice caused by delay from prejudice arising from the charges and bail conditions themselves, and by underweighting the seriousness of the offences and the public interest in a merits determination.

The appeal was allowed, the stay was set aside, and the matter was ordered to proceed to trial.

The defendants in a personal injury action appealed a costs award of $578,742.28 following a jury trial where the plaintiffs were awarded $144,013.07 in damages.

The defendants had made an offer to settle for $145,000 plus prejudgment interest.

The Court of Appeal found that while the offer was timely, the defendants failed to prove it exceeded the judgment due to uncertainty regarding the prejudgment interest rate.

However, the Court held that the trial judge erred by failing to consider the offer under Rule 49.13 and by ignoring the vast disparity between the amount claimed ($1.9 million) and the amount recovered.

The costs award was wholly disproportionate and was reduced to $100,000.

The appellant sought to institute a private prosecution against the Chief Firearms Officer of Ontario for declining to issue an unconditional firearms transport authorization.

A Justice of the Peace declined to authorize the private prosecution following a pre-enquete hearing, and the Superior Court upheld this decision.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no jurisdictional error by the Justice of the Peace and noting that any authorization to transport a restricted firearm must comply with the condition to name specified places under the Firearms Act.

The appellant, a young person, was convicted of numerous firearms offences after police found loaded firearms in his bedroom.

He appealed his convictions, arguing that the trial judge erred in refusing to grant a stay of proceedings under s. 24(1) of the Charter due to a 12-day delay in holding his bail hearing, which violated his s. 11(e) rights.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that the trial judge properly applied the residual category of abuse of process and reasonably concluded that the community's interest in seeing the serious charges disposed of on their merits outweighed the need for a stay.

The Court also found that the trial judge's conclusion that the appellant possessed the firearms was reasonable and supported by the evidence.

The appellant appealed an order declaring that the respondent had priority over any other interest claimed in certain retirement community units, except for valid construction lien claims.

The appellant argued the motion judge erred by determining the priority motion separately from the lien reference and by not giving effect to its security and equity interests.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the bifurcation of issues flowed from a previous unappealed court order and that the motion judge's order specifically preserved the construction lien issues.

The appellant, an assignee of a second mortgage, appealed an order on the sole basis that the motion judge erred by refusing to grant an adjournment on the hearing date.

The appellant claimed it had no notice of the hearing and had only retained counsel the day before.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that the decision to grant or refuse an adjournment is discretionary and entitled to deference, and found no basis to interfere with the motion judge's decision.