F. Bruce Fitzpatrick

The applicants, charged with break and enter, were discharged at a preliminary inquiry, terminating their bail.

The Crown successfully applied for certiorari, reviving the charges.

To address the outstanding issue of bail, the Crown sought and obtained arrest warrants for the applicants.

The applicants brought an application for a stay of proceedings, alleging the Crown's conduct in seeking the warrants was an abuse of process and breached their rights under sections 7 and 9 of the Charter.

The court dismissed the applications, finding the Crown's conduct did not meet the high threshold for abuse of process and the arrests were lawful under section 507(8) of the Criminal Code.

The parties separated after a 20-year marriage.

The trial addressed child support, spousal support, and equalization, including the valuation of the respondent's businesses and the matrimonial home.

The court imputed income to both parties, setting the applicant's income at $37,500 and the respondent's at $162,800 for 2013, factoring in corporate pre-tax income and personal expenses paid by his companies.

The court valued the respondent's businesses on a going concern basis rather than a liquidation basis.

The court also found that the respondent held a 50% beneficial interest in the matrimonial home, which was registered solely in the applicant's name, as the presumption of resulting trust was not rebutted.

The applicant's request for an unequal division of net family property due to a tax liability was dismissed.

The respondent was ordered to pay an equalization payment of $699,309.14, plus ongoing child and spousal support.

Following the settlement of high-conflict family law issues by consent orders, the parties sought a determination on costs.

The court noted the extreme disproportionality of the legal fees claimed by both parties relative to the modest financial issues and typical custody disputes involved.

Finding that the respondent unreasonably failed to accept the applicant's early offers regarding the basic framework for joint custody, the court awarded the applicant fixed costs of $25,000.

The accused was charged with armed robbery and wearing a disguise with intent following the robbery of a gas station by two masked men.

The Crown's case relied on recognition evidence from the store attendant, who previously worked with the accused, and circumstantial evidence including DNA found on discarded clothing and shoes near the scene.

The court found the attendant's recognition evidence reliable and concluded that the only rational inference from the DNA and circumstantial evidence was that the accused was one of the perpetrators.

The accused was found guilty on both counts.

The accused, charged with attempted murder and aggravated assault, brought an O'Connor application seeking third-party records from the investigating police service.

The requested records included the training records of the interrogating officers and gang intelligence information regarding several witnesses.

The court dismissed the application, finding that the officers' training was irrelevant to the voluntariness of the accused's statements, which depends on the officers' actual conduct.

The court also held that the gang intelligence information was protected by informer privilege and that compelling its production would improperly conscript the police to conduct investigations on behalf of the defence.

The City of Dryden sought leave to appeal a decision of the Assessment Review Board regarding the municipal assessment of a pulp mill owned by Domtar Inc. The City argued the Board erred in law by applying a 51.7% deduction for economic obsolescence.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, finding that the quantification of economic obsolescence is a question of fact, not law, and that the potential tax impact on the municipality's ratepayers did not raise an important question of law meriting the court's attention.

Following a matrimonial trial, the court determined property and equalization issues relating to a former matrimonial home.

The respondent asserted that funds advanced by his father toward the home purchase and household expenses were loans or subject to a resulting trust, reducing his net family property.

The court applied the presumption of resulting trust for gratuitous transfers from parent to adult child but found the presumption rebutted due to the absence of corroborating documentation, repayment terms, security, or evidence of enforcement.

The advances were characterized as gifts that lost excluded status when invested in the matrimonial home under the Family Law Act.

The court ordered an equalization payment to the applicant with prejudgment interest, while dismissing claims for a vesting order and occupation rent.

The plaintiff sought damages arising from childhood sexual assaults committed by a priest who stood in a position of trust and authority.

Civil liability was established through the defendant's criminal conviction, leaving quantum as the sole issue.

The court awarded substantial non-pecuniary damages, pecuniary damages for lost college-level earning capacity and future treatment costs, punitive damages, and prejudgment interest.

The court accepted expert psychological and accounting evidence linking the abuse to long-term psychiatric injury, impaired educational attainment, reduced occupational achievement, and ongoing treatment needs.

The moving party brought a motion to change a 2009 child support order following an uncontested hearing where the responding party did not appear.

The court found that the moving party’s post‑order income from 2010–2013 was significantly lower than the $50,000 income previously imputed, constituting a material change in circumstances justifying variation of arrears.

Child support and s. 7 expense obligations were recalculated retroactively based on the moving party’s actual annual income for each year from 2010 to 2015.

The court accepted a proportional methodology for recalculating historical s. 7 expenses in the absence of evidence from the responding party.

Arrears were fixed at a reduced amount and repayment terms were ordered alongside revised ongoing support.

The moving party sought a determination of how proceeds from a power of sale should be distributed between mortgagees.

The dispute concerned whether a first-ranking mortgagee could add a $230,000 settlement payment made to an execution creditor to the secured mortgage amount.

The court held that the payment could not be added because the mortgage had been assigned to another entity before the settlement was made, meaning the payer no longer held a mortgage interest to protect.

The court further rejected arguments based on resulting trust and equitable subrogation, emphasizing the Land Titles Act principles of certainty of title and the inability to enforce unregistered beneficial interests against third parties.

The settlement payment and related legal costs were therefore not recoverable as part of the mortgage debt.

A separated married couple disputed custody, parenting time, child support, and property issues relating to two children with significant special needs.

The court considered the best interests of the children under the Divorce Act and the Children’s Law Reform Act and rejected joint custody due to the parents’ inability to communicate and cooperate.

The court granted the applicant primary decision‑making authority with liberal parenting time to the respondent.

Income was imputed to the respondent due to inadequate financial disclosure and intentional underemployment, resulting in guideline child support and contribution to section 7 expenses.

The court also recognized the applicant’s 50 percent beneficial interest in the matrimonial home under the presumption of resulting trust and declared a mortgage against a jointly owned cottage unsupported by evidence.

The appellant appealed convictions for three counts of sexual assault arising from incidents involving a workplace employee with a learning disability.

He argued the trial judge erred by permitting the complainant to testify by CCTV while also admitting her videotaped police statement, misapplying the law of consent and mistaken belief in consent, improperly reconsidering a SOIRA registration order after sentencing, and upholding the constitutionality of lifetime registration under s. 490.013(2.1) of the Criminal Code.

The court held that the trial judge properly admitted both CCTV testimony and the videotaped statement under ss. 486.2 and 715.2, and that the findings of lack of consent and rejection of mistaken belief in consent were supported by the evidence.

Although the trial judge erred in reconsidering the SOIRA order after sentencing, the corrected lifetime registration remained appropriate.

The constitutional challenge to the SOIRA lifetime registration provision under s. 7 of the Charter was dismissed.

The defendants brought a motion to strike several paragraphs of the plaintiffs' Reply under Rule 25.11, arguing they were irrelevant, scandalous, and would prejudice the fair trial.

The plaintiffs also sought leave to amend their Reply to add a new paragraph.

The court dismissed the motion to strike, finding that the impugned paragraphs were a proper response to the defendants' pleading of a 'moral and social duty' and 'public interest' in their Statement of Defence.

The court also granted the plaintiffs leave to amend their Reply, finding no prejudice to the defendants.

The self-represented accused brought pretrial applications seeking a stay of proceedings, alleging violations of his rights under s. 11(b) and s. 8 of the Charter.

The accused argued that the 39-month delay from his arrest to the application date was unreasonable and that the search warrant for his home was unlawfully obtained based on insufficient information from confidential informants.

The court dismissed the s. 11(b) application, finding that much of the delay was attributable to the accused's own actions, including changing counsel multiple times, and that he failed to prove any prejudice.

The court also dismissed the s. 8 application, concluding that the Information to Obtain (ITO) provided sufficient reliable information for the issuing justice to authorize the search warrant.

The self-represented accused brought pretrial applications seeking a stay of proceedings for alleged violations of his s. 11(b) and s. 8 Charter rights.

He argued that the 39-month delay from his arrest to the application date was unreasonable and that the search warrant for his home was based on insufficient information from confidential informants.

The court dismissed both applications, finding that the delay was largely attributable to the accused's own actions, including changing counsel multiple times, and that the Information to Obtain the search warrant provided sufficient grounds for the issuing justice to authorize the search.

The appellants, federal inmates, sought to certify a class action against the Crown after correctional officers seized t-shirts they had designed to commemorate inmates who died in custody.

The motion judge refused certification, finding that the inmate grievance process under the Corrections and Conditional Release Act was the preferable procedure for resolving the dispute.

On appeal to the Divisional Court, the appellants argued the motion judge erred in her preferability analysis.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, holding that the motion judge correctly applied the framework from AIC Limited v. Fischer and made no error in principle in concluding that the grievance process could provide meaningful redress and access to justice.

The self-represented plaintiff brought an action against his former employer, several management employees, his union, a union representative, and the lawyers who acted for the employer and the union during a grievance arbitration.

The grievance had been settled on the day of the arbitration in June 2012.

All defendants brought motions to strike the statement of claim.

The court granted the motions and dismissed the action against all defendants.

The claims against the lawyers were struck as disclosing no reasonable cause of action, as opposing counsel owes no duty of care to an opposing party, and the claims against the union lawyer fell within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Ontario Labour Relations Board.

Furthermore, the court found that all claims against all defendants were statute-barred under the Limitations Act, 2002, as the action was commenced more than two years after the claims were discovered.

The plaintiffs brought a motion for leave to appeal an interlocutory order that declined to appoint independent counsel for the corporate plaintiff in a shareholder dispute.

The court found that the moving parties failed to establish conflicting decisions or good reason to doubt the correctness of the order.

The motion for leave to appeal was dismissed with costs.

The applicant, who was convicted of driving while suspended and obstructing a conservation officer under the Provincial Offences Act, brought an application for certiorari to set aside the convictions.

The applicant advanced Organized Pseudo-legal Commercial Arguments (OPCA), claiming that the statutory right of appeal did not apply to him as a "man not wishing to act in such a capacity".

The court rejected these arguments as spurious and lacking merit.

The application was dismissed because section 141(3) of the Provincial Offences Act precludes an application for certiorari where a statutory right of appeal is available.

The applicant brought two applications seeking state-funded counsel for his summary conviction appeal for assault and mischief.

The first application under s. 684(1) of the Criminal Code was dismissed because the Superior Court of Justice lacks jurisdiction, as the provision applies only to indictable appeals before the Court of Appeal.

The second application for a Rowbotham order was also dismissed.

Although the applicant was denied Legal Aid and lacked the means to retain counsel, the court found that the appeal was not legally or factually complex and the charges were not sufficiently serious to warrant state-funded counsel.

The applicant was deemed capable of representing himself.