Eric Anthony Clear Williams

The applicants sought to appeal and judicially review an arbitrator's decision finding them personally liable for the tort of deceit in a real estate venture.

They argued the arbitrator lacked jurisdiction over them personally as they had not signed the arbitration agreement in their personal capacities.

The Divisional Court dismissed the applications, finding the applicants had agreed to arbitration by their conduct, including obtaining a prior court order referring the claims to arbitration, and had waived any jurisdictional objections by participating without complaint.

The court also held that judicial review is unavailable for private commercial arbitrations and that the arbitration agreement's 'final and binding' clause precluded any appeal.

The appellants appealed an order striking portions of their statement of claim against the respondents, which included claims related to religious indoctrination at a private school.

The Court of Appeal upheld the motion judge's finding that there is no tort of religious indoctrination and that certain claims were non-justiciable.

However, the Court granted the appellants leave to amend their pleadings to clarify a theory of breach of fiduciary duty based on the respondents' alleged failure to educate the students in accordance with Anglican faith and values.

The Court also restored several paragraphs that had been struck for being redundant, irrelevant, or argumentative.

The appeal was allowed in part.

The appellants appealed an order dismissing their action.

The Court of Appeal agreed with the motion judge that the action was a collateral attack on a previous order and therefore an abuse of process.

The court also found that the aspect of the claim challenging the propriety of a property sale would require re-litigating previous factual findings, and applied the principles of issue estoppel.

The appeal was dismissed with costs awarded to the respondents.

The appellant life insurance company appealed a trial judgment awarding its former agent damages for breach of fiduciary duty, punitive damages, and vested renewal commissions following his termination.

The trial judge found the appellant breached its fiduciary duty by freezing the agent's vested commission account and acted in bad faith in its post-termination conduct.

The Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge's findings on the vested commissions, the breach of fiduciary duty, the punitive damages award, and the dismissal of the appellant's counterclaim.

However, the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal regarding the trial judge's award of a risk premium on costs, holding that the amended Rule 57.01 of the Rules of Civil Procedure does not permit a risk premium to be awarded against an unsuccessful party.

The appellants appealed the dismissal of their personal injury claim.

The trial judge had found the plaintiff's evidence regarding how the accident occurred to be confusing and inconsistent due to her age and illness, and drew an adverse inference from the failure to call a witness to the accident.

The Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge's findings, concluding there was no prima facie case of negligence, and dismissed the appeal with costs.

The appellants were injured in a motor vehicle accident caused by an impaired driver who had just left a BYOB house party hosted by the respondents.

The appellants sued the social hosts, arguing they owed a duty of care to third-party users of the highway.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal, holding that social hosts do not owe a duty of care to members of the public who may be injured by an intoxicated guest's conduct, unless the host's conduct implicates them in the creation or exacerbation of the risk.

The Court found that the injury was not reasonably foreseeable and that there was no positive duty to act.

The appellant lender appealed the dismissal of its claim against a law firm that acted for both sides in a loan transaction, alleging conflict of interest and failure to advise on risks.

The respondent mortgagors cross-appealed, arguing the mortgage was invalid because the law firm failed to insist the wife obtain independent legal advice.

The Court of Appeal dismissed both appeals, upholding the trial judge's findings that no disqualifying conflict existed, the lender would have proceeded regardless of further advice, and the wife would have signed the mortgage even with independent legal advice because the loan benefited her family.

The appellants appealed a summary judgment dismissing their claim for life insurance benefits.

The insurer argued that a diagnosis of cancer was made within the 90-day exclusion period.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding that while a diagnosis does not need to be communicated to the patient or made by a treating physician to be effective, the policy specifically defined 'cancer (life-threatening)' to exclude some cancers.

Because the doctor's report did not clearly indicate whether the cancer detected met this definition, a triable issue existed.

The summary judgment was set aside.

Following an appeal that set aside an order extending limitation periods but adjourned the issues to trial, all parties sought costs.

The Court of Appeal determined that the respondents were substantially successful because they defeated the appellants' motion for summary judgment and maintained their position that the limitation issues should be decided at trial.

The respondents were awarded costs of $15,000 on a partial indemnity basis.

The deceased was struck and killed by two motorists while walking on a highway after becoming intoxicated at a college event.

The deceased's family commenced an action under the Family Law Act more than three years after the accident.

The motion judge extended the two-year limitation period under s. 2(8) of the Family Law Act and applied the discoverability rule.

The Court of Appeal allowed the defendants' appeal, holding that the plaintiffs' unawareness of the limitation period did not postpone it, and that whether the requirements of s. 2(8) and the discoverability rule were met should be determined at trial rather than on a motion.

The appellant was seriously injured in a motor vehicle accident caused by an impaired driver who had just left a BYOB party hosted by the respondents.

The appellant sued the driver and the social hosts.

The trial judge found the driver liable but dismissed the action against the social hosts, finding they owed no duty of care for policy reasons.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal upheld the dismissal against the social hosts, concluding that on the specific facts of this case—where the hosts did not serve the alcohol, did not know how much the driver drank, and did not know he was impaired when he left—no duty of care was owed to third-party users of the road.

The appeal was dismissed as to liability but allowed in part regarding costs.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving Canada (MADD Canada) brought a motion for leave to intervene as a friend of the court in an appeal concerning social host liability for drunk driving.

The underlying case involved a plaintiff who was seriously injured by an intoxicated driver who had left a party hosted by the defendants.

The court granted the motion, finding that the appeal involved broad public policy considerations regarding whether to recognize a novel duty of care.

The court held that MADD Canada could make a useful contribution to the policy analysis without causing injustice to the parties, despite its alignment with the plaintiffs' position.

The interveners appealed a trial judgment concerning a dispute over the assets of The Holy Virgin Church.

The Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge's finding that proposed by-law amendments were governed by the approval requirements in the Normal Parish By-laws, noting that the dispute was fundamentally religious and outside the court's purview.

However, the Court allowed the appeal in part, finding that the trial judge improperly exercised his discretion under s. 106 of the Canada Corporations Act to order a meeting, as the power struggle between factions did not constitute extraordinary circumstances making a meeting impracticable.

The defendants, a church parish and a seniors' residence, sought a stay of execution of a trial judgment that handed control of the parish to the plaintiff Diocese after a failed attempt by the parish to secede.

Following the judgment, the Diocese took control and filed a notice of abandonment of the appeal.

The moving party sought to strike the abandonment and stay the judgment to use parish funds for the appeal.

The court dismissed the stay motion and allowed the notice of abandonment to stand, noting that the true protagonists (the seceding individuals) should seek intervenor status to pursue the appeal at their own expense rather than using parish funds.

The appellants challenged the trial judge’s calculation of business interruption losses under an insurance policy following a fire.

The court held that monthly mortgage interest payments were fixed obligations that necessarily continued during the interruption and were not deductible as non-continuing expenses from gross earnings.

It also rejected the argument that payment of the mortgages from fire insurance proceeds created double recovery.

The appeal was dismissed except for a conceded reduction of the judgment by the $5,000 policy deductible.

The appellants challenged the dismissal of their claim for consequential and punitive damages arising from an insurer's delay in paying fire insurance proceeds to mortgagees after hotel fire losses.

The court held that the insurer's duty of good faith requires prompt and fair handling of claims, but rejected the argument that Statutory Condition 12 of the Insurance Act imposes an absolute 60-day payment obligation giving rise to consequential damages whenever a claim ultimately succeeds.

Although the court found a limited breach of good faith in failing to pay at least 50 percent of the amount claimed once the insurer relied only on a co-insurance position, the appellants failed to prove any resulting loss beyond interest already paid.

Punitive damages were also unavailable because no compensable damage flowed from the bad faith breach and the conduct was not sufficiently harsh or malicious.