Elisha C. Jamieson-Davies

The appellant, a Senior Financial Advisor employed by CIBC, appealed a motion judge's decision striking portions of his Fresh as Amended Statement of Claim alleging defamation, libel, and negligence against CIBC and CIBC Securities.

The motion judge found that the alleged defamatory statements were not contained in the documents referenced, or alternatively, were not published by the respondents.

The Microsoft Teams chat could not constitute publication for defamation purposes.

The Court of Appeal upheld the motion judge's decision, finding no error in the analysis of the documents and dismissing the appeal with costs awarded to the respondents.

The plaintiffs brought a motion to compel answers to refusals and questions taken under advisement from the examination for discovery of the defendants’ representative.

The court considered the scope of discovery in a class action, focusing on whether the questions related to certified common issues.

The court ordered answers to certain questions and refusals to others, based on relevance and proportionality to the common issues.

No costs were awarded, as both parties had almost equal success.

The moving parties brought a motion for leave to appeal the order of Perell J. dated February 29, 2024.

The Divisional Court dismissed the motion for leave to appeal and awarded costs to the responding parties in the amount of $1,500.

The applicant sought judicial review of decisions by the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario dismissing her discrimination complaint against the respondent college and denying reconsideration.

The complaint arose from a group assignment in a paralegal course where the applicant alleged discrimination based on race, ancestry, place of origin, and creed.

The Divisional Court found the HRTO's decisions to be reasonable, noting the applicant failed to link the alleged unfair treatment to any prohibited grounds under the Human Rights Code.

The court also dismissed allegations of adjudicator bias, concluding that an adverse finding does not give rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias.

This decision concerns the costs of a prior motion in an employment class action.

The Plaintiffs brought a motion to settle a Discovery Plan, and the Defendants brought a cross-motion to amend certified common issues.

The court granted the Defendants' motion and dismissed the Plaintiffs' motion.

The Defendants sought substantial indemnity costs, while the Plaintiffs argued for costs in the cause or partial indemnity.

The court awarded the Defendants $29,930.58 on a partial indemnity basis, finding that while the Plaintiffs' proposed discovery plan was "outrageous, abusive, and unfair" their conduct in seeking it was not.

The court also considered that the process of developing the discovery plan, despite the Plaintiffs losing the motion, ultimately benefited them by leading to admissions that could avoid an onerous common issues trial.

In a certified class action regarding unpaid vacation and public holiday pay, the plaintiffs moved to settle a discovery plan, and the defendants brought a cross-motion to amend the certified common issues and approve an alternative discovery plan.

The court dismissed the plaintiffs' motion, finding their proposed discovery plan to be disproportionate, unnecessary, and abusive, as it sought extensive electronic searches and oral discovery beyond the scope of the common issues.

The court granted the defendants' cross-motion, approving their revised common issues and their more proportionate discovery plan.

In a class action regarding unpaid vacation and public holiday pay, the plaintiffs moved to settle a discovery plan, and the defendants brought a cross-motion to amend the certified common issues and approve an alternative discovery plan.

The court dismissed the plaintiffs' motion, finding their proposed discovery plan to be disproportionate, unnecessary, and overly broad.

The court granted the defendants' cross-motion, amending the common issues to reflect the actual scope of the claims and approving the defendants' more focused discovery plan.

In a class action regarding unpaid vacation and public holiday pay, the plaintiffs moved to settle a discovery plan, and the defendants brought a cross-motion to amend the certified common issues and approve an alternative discovery plan.

The court dismissed the plaintiffs' motion, finding their proposed discovery plan to be disproportionate, unnecessary, and abusive.

The court granted the defendants' cross-motion, amending the common issues to reflect the actual scope of the action and approving the defendants' more proportionate discovery plan.

The defendants brought a motion for directions and a temporary sealing order to protect solicitor-client privileged information that the plaintiff had filed publicly in her motion records and statements of claim.

The plaintiff opposed, arguing the privilege was waived and emphasizing the open court principle.

The court granted the defendants' motion, ordering the expungement of the publicly filed documents and their replacement with redacted versions, pending a determination on the merits of the privilege waiver issue.

The court found that protecting solicitor-client privilege, a fundamental public interest, outweighed the plaintiff's temporary interest in publicizing the information.

The defendants brought a motion to quash several summonses issued by the plaintiff to employees and a former employee of Georgian College.

The plaintiff sought to examine these witnesses in advance of her motion for a mandatory interlocutory injunction regarding a hiring process for an Associate Dean position.

The court quashed the summonses for the non-party witnesses, finding the request to be a fishing expedition that failed to meet the requirements of Rule 39.03.

However, the court permitted the examination of two named defendants, subject to the condition that they could not be examined again for discovery without leave of the court.

The applicant, a tenured university professor, sought judicial review of a Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) decision dismissing his discrimination application as out of time, and a subsequent decision denying reconsideration.

The HRTO had found that the applicant's allegations regarding a workplace investigation did not form part of a 'series of incidents' with earlier alleged discriminatory acts by a dean, and thus the application was filed beyond the one-year limitation period.

The Divisional Court applied the reasonableness standard of review and upheld the HRTO's decisions, finding that the HRTO reasonably concluded the investigation was discrete and separate from the earlier incidents, and that the applicant failed to provide a good faith explanation for the delay.

The National Organized Workers Union appealed the denial of an interlocutory injunction to prevent Sinai Health System from enforcing a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy.

The union argued that the policy compelled vaccination without informed consent, constituting irreparable harm not remediable by arbitration.

The Court of Appeal upheld the application judge's decision, finding no error in declining to exercise the Superior Court's residual jurisdiction in labour relations.

The court affirmed that the potential harm of unpaid leave or termination due to non-compliance with a workplace policy is fundamentally related to employment and is remediable by a labour arbitrator through reinstatement and compensation for lost wages, thus not creating a 'remedial gap' that would warrant Superior Court intervention.

The appellants, former employees of Medcan, appealed the dismissal of their motion to certify a class proceeding for unpaid vacation and public holiday pay on variable compensation.

The certification judge had found that a class action was not the preferable procedure.

The Divisional Court allowed the appeal, finding the certification judge erred in principle by failing to conduct the preferability analysis through the lens of the three principal goals of class actions, specifically failing to consider barriers to access to justice and behaviour modification.

The action was certified as a class proceeding.

The applicant sought judicial review of a decision by the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario denying her request to reactivate her human rights application.

The request was made 40 days late due to the inadvertence of her counsel.

The Tribunal applied the strict test under section 34(2) of the Human Rights Code, requiring a good faith explanation and no substantial prejudice, rather than its broader procedural rules.

The Divisional Court found the Tribunal's decision unreasonable, as it fettered its discretion by refusing to consider prejudice and misapplied its own jurisprudence.

The decision was set aside and remitted to a different Tribunal member.

Plaintiff's counsel moved to remove themselves as counsel of record due to a breakdown in relations with their client, Gregory Stokker, who had settled his individual claim in a proposed class action through separate counsel and became incommunicative.

The court granted the motion, allowing counsel to withdraw.

The plaintiff was ordered to be served directly with the endorsement and any future materials, and given 30 days to communicate his plans for the claim or retain new counsel, failing which the defendant would be at liberty to bring further motions.

The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce appealed three lower court decisions in a class action initiated by Dara Fresco on behalf of 31,000 customer service employees.

The class action alleged that the Bank's overtime policies and record-keeping practices led to uncompensated overtime, contrary to the Canada Labour Code.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario dismissed all three appeals.

It upheld the motion judge's interpretation of "permitted" overtime under s. 174 of the Code, affirming that the Bank's policies and record-keeping were "institutional impediments" to proper compensation.

The Court also confirmed the certification of aggregate damages, ruling that the Supreme Court's Pro-Sys decision allowed the trial judge to reconsider this issue despite a previous refusal at certification.

Finally, the Court upheld the motion judge's decision to defer a class-wide limitations order and a constitutional question regarding the extra-territorial application of the Class Proceedings Act, deeming them premature.

The self-represented appellant sought judicial review of two Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) decisions that dismissed her application for failure to appear and denied her request for reconsideration.

The appellant had missed the start of a telephone hearing due to a scheduling mistake and childcare duties, but attempted to join and emailed the tribunal within the scheduled hearing time.

The Divisional Court found that the appellant provided a sufficient explanation for her delay and that the HRTO's refusal to reconsider the dismissal was unreasonable.

The HRTO decisions were quashed and the matter was remitted for a new hearing date.

The applicant unions sought interim injunctions to restrain the respondent employers from enforcing mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policies pending the outcome of labour arbitrations.

The court dismissed the Sinai application on the basis that the labour arbitration process provided an adequate alternative remedy, precluding the exercise of the court's residual jurisdiction.

The court dismissed the TTC application on the merits of the injunction test, finding that the loss of employment or income did not constitute irreparable harm and that the balance of convenience strongly favoured the employer's obligation to protect public health and workplace safety.

The plaintiffs, former employees who received variable compensation, brought a proposed class action against their former employer for unpaid vacation and public holiday pay.

The employer admitted to miscalculating the pay and made remedial payments for the two years prior to discovery, but relied on the Limitations Act to deny older claims.

The plaintiffs moved for certification and the defendants cross-moved for summary judgment.

The court dismissed the summary judgment motion, finding genuine issues for trial regarding limitation periods and releases.

The court also dismissed the certification motion, concluding that while the first three criteria were met, a class proceeding was not the preferable procedure because individual issues trials regarding limitation periods and releases were inevitable and would not be advanced by a common issues trial.

The plaintiff in a proposed class action regarding employee misclassification brought a motion to substitute herself with a new representative plaintiff.

The defendant opposed, arguing the new plaintiff's claim was statute-barred and her interests were misaligned with the class because she recently sought work with the defendant as an independent contractor.

The court granted the substitution, finding the new plaintiff had a tenable claim because discoverability of Employment Standards Act entitlements may be delayed when an employer represents a worker as an independent contractor.

The court also found her recent job search did not preclude her from adequately representing the class.