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The Court of Appeal vacated a civil contempt finding and sentence because the appellant was unconstitutionally compelled to testify against himself.
The Court of Appeal for Ontario allowed the appeal of Colin Patrick Murphy, finding that the motion judge erred by compelling Murphy to testify during his own civil contempt proceedings, in violation of section 11(c) of the Charter.
The compelled testimony was improperly used to support a finding of contempt and to justify a sentence of incarceration.
The Court held that section 11(c) applies to civil contempt proceedings, including sentencing, and prohibits testimonial compulsion once contempt is alleged.
The finding of contempt for failing to produce deleted data and the sentence were set aside, and the matter was remitted for a new sentencing hearing on the admitted acts of contempt.
The court struck the respondent's Notice of Appearance after finding its principal accessed the applicant's privileged emails and failed to rebut the presumption of prejudice.
The Applicant brought a motion for judgment, alleging that the Respondent's principal, Paul Halyk, accessed confidential and privileged communications between the Applicant's principal and its legal counsel.
The court found that Halyk accessed privileged material and failed to rebut the presumption of prejudice, as he did not provide specific details about the extent of his review.
While declining to grant judgment on the Application due to insufficient evidentiary record for the underlying merits, the court ordered the Respondent's Notice of Appearance struck, allowing the Application to proceed as undefended.
Successful defendant awarded partial indemnity costs, subject to a 10% reduction for untruthful witness testimony.
Following the dismissal of the plaintiffs' action after a 26-day trial, the successful defendant sought costs on a substantial indemnity basis.
The plaintiffs argued the defendant should be deprived of costs because two of its witnesses gave untruthful evidence.
The court declined to award substantial indemnity costs, finding the plaintiffs' conduct was not egregious.
The court also refused to completely deprive the defendant of costs, but applied a 10% reduction to the fee award to sanction the untruthful testimony.
The court significantly reduced the defendant's claimed expert witness disbursements, finding them grossly excessive, and fixed total fees at $483,300 plus disbursements and HST.
