FL Myers

The plaintiff brought a motion for summary judgment for the repayment of a $100,000 loan.

The defendant argued the loan was unenforceable due to the involvement of his former lawyer, who allegedly arranged the loan to pay off a debt owed to the defendant and may have received secret commissions from the plaintiff.

The court found no evidence to support the defendant's speculative defenses or to implicate the plaintiff in any wrongdoing.

The court granted summary judgment in favor of the plaintiff, finding no genuine issue requiring a trial, and awarded full indemnity costs.

The defendants brought a motion to stay the plaintiffs' oppression and breach of fiduciary duty action in favour of arbitration under s. 7 of the Arbitration Act, 1991.

The parties, who are siblings, had previously settled an arbitration but reserved rights regarding the sale of certain properties.

The court applied the Haas framework and found there was an arguable basis that the arbitral panel had jurisdiction over the dispute.

The action was stayed pending the outcome of the arbitration, with costs awarded to the defendants.

The plaintiff was injured in a motor vehicle accident when she was allegedly cut off by an unidentified black pick-up truck.

She sought a declaration that she could access the $1 million limit under her OPCF 44R Family Protection Endorsement.

The insurer argued that the independent witness's statement to the investigating police officer was inadmissible hearsay and could not satisfy the endorsement's corroboration requirement.

The court held that the corroboration requirement in the insurance contract does not strictly require admissible evidence, and the hearsay statement to the police officer provided sufficient independent indication of an unidentified vehicle's involvement to trigger coverage.

The applicant estate sought a preservation order to prevent the respondent mining company from dealing with a 1.5% net smelter return royalty interest.

The interest had escheated to the Crown after the corporate owner was dissolved in 1989, and was recently sold by the Public Guardian and Trustee to the respondent.

The applicant acknowledged lacking standing to challenge the sale without a special statute to revive the dissolved corporation, which the Legislature had already refused to pass.

The court dismissed the application, holding that Rule 45.01 does not permit a standalone application for a preservation order in contemplation of a future, possible lawsuit by a party that currently lacks standing.

The defendant former employee moved to strike the plaintiffs' statement of claim without leave to amend.

The plaintiffs, a dentist and his practice, alleged the defendant defamed them and sabotaged their computers during her brief employment.

The court struck the poorly drafted statement of claim but granted the plaintiffs leave to amend, finding that tenable causes of action for defamation, breach of fiduciary duty, and conspiracy were possible on the facts alleged.

The plaintiffs were ordered to pay $9,000 in costs for delivering a deficient pleading.

The appellant Minister appealed an arbitrator's decision holding the Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Fund liable to pay statutory accident benefits to a passenger injured in a snowmobile accident.

The passenger was riding on an uninsured snowmobile that crashed into a tree, followed 0.6 seconds later by an insured snowmobile crashing into the same tree.

The arbitrator found the insured snowmobile was not 'involved in the incident' because it did not cause or contribute to the injuries.

The Superior Court allowed the appeal, holding that the arbitrator erred in law by engrafting a causation requirement onto the plain meaning of 'involved in the incident' under s. 268(2)(1)(iii) of the Insurance Act.

The defendant brought a motion for summary judgment based on the expiry of the limitation period just two weeks before a scheduled jury trial.

The plaintiff had suffered a concussion but argued she did not discover the cause of her symptoms until months later, after ruling out a brain tumour.

The court declined to decide the motion, finding that assessing the reasonableness of the plaintiff's discoverability required a proper evidentiary base, including cross-examinations, which was not feasible so close to trial.

The motion was adjourned to the trial judge.

The applicants purchased a property and subsequently received a municipal order to remediate unpermitted structures.

They made a claim under their title insurance policy.

The insurer invoked the policy's appraisal process, instructing the appraiser to calculate the 'Actual Loss' by valuing the land as if the unpermitted structures did not exist.

The applicants challenged this interpretation and the policy's appraisal process.

The court held that 'Actual Loss' must be calculated based on the value of the property subject to the government order, not as vacant land.

Furthermore, the court ruled that the appraisal process mandated by section 128 of the Insurance Act overrides the inconsistent process set out in the insurance policy.

The defendant government brought a motion to transfer the plaintiff's action challenging mandatory COVID-19 vaccination laws from Ottawa to the Toronto Region.

The government sought to have the plaintiff's Charter claims heard alongside a similar application already scheduled in Toronto.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that transferring the action would result in a loss of discovery rights for the plaintiff, risk duplication of evidence, and create a risk of inconsistent verdicts between the Charter and Human Rights Code claims.

The court concluded there was no connection between the action and the Toronto Region to justify a transfer.

The defendants moved to strike the plaintiffs' Response to Demand for Particulars and portions of their Reply.

The plaintiffs had previously been denied leave to amend their statement of claim to add causes of action relating to events in 2008 and 2009, with the court finding those claims were not already pleaded.

The plaintiffs subsequently attempted to assert in their particulars and reply that the original claim did include those causes of action.

The court granted the defendants' motion, holding that the plaintiffs were bound by the prior final decisions under the doctrines of issue estoppel and abuse of process.

The appellant appealed a decision of the Consent and Capacity Board finding him incapable of consenting to treatment with antipsychotic medication for a delusional disorder.

The appellant argued he suffered from multiple chemical sensitivity, not delusions, and that the Board erred in its capacity assessment.

The Superior Court of Justice dismissed the appeal, finding the Board made no errors of law and reasonably concluded the appellant was unable to recognize he might be affected by a mental condition, thus lacking capacity under the Starson test.

The plaintiff moved to deliver a fresh, amended statement of claim.

The defendants opposed the motion, arguing it would waste years of effort and costs already invested in discovery and trial preparation.

The court allowed the amendments, noting that barring incompensable prejudice, the rules require amendments to be allowed.

Two paragraphs related to preventing mortgage enforcement were withdrawn on consent as the mortgage had already been enforced.

Costs of the motion were left in the cause as between the plaintiff and the self-represented defendant, and no costs were awarded between the plaintiff and the mortgagee defendant.

The respondent condominium corporation sought an order requiring the moving party unit owners to sell their unit or comply with the condominium's rules following a series of disputes between neighbours.

The moving parties moved to stay the application, arguing the dispute must first be mediated and arbitrated pursuant to s. 132(4) of the Condominium Act, 1998.

The court found that the core of the dispute related to the condominium's declaration, by-laws, and rules, rather than statutory breaches of ss. 117 and 119 that would bypass arbitration.

The court granted the motion and stayed the application pending mediation and arbitration, awarding costs to the moving parties.

The plaintiff construction manager sought an urgent hearing for an injunction to prevent the defendant union from allegedly intimidating a masonry contractor's employees into refusing to work.

The developer, Westbank, sought and was granted intervenor status.

The court declined to schedule the injunction motion on an urgent basis, finding that the delay in bringing the action was strategic and the alleged urgency was self-induced.

The parties were directed to schedule a regular motion date.

The defendant lawyer moved to strike the plaintiff's professional negligence claim.

The plaintiff alleged the lawyer was negligent in a prior unsuccessful lawsuit against a bank for failing to adduce expert evidence on the duty of care.

The court granted the motion to strike, finding that the prior courts had definitively ruled the bank owed no duty of care based on the contract, making the negligence claim an improper collateral attack on those decisions.

The claim was struck with leave to amend to plead claims not predicated on the prior decisions being incorrect.

The respondent Toronto Transit Commission requested the dismissal of an application commenced by the applicant, who had previously been declared a vexatious litigant.

The applicant commenced the proceeding without obtaining the required leave of the court.

Applying Rule 2.1.03 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, the court found no basis to stay the litigation and dismissed the application in its entirety, awarding costs to the respondents on a substantial indemnity basis.

The plaintiff brought a motion for substitutional service, extension of a prior order, and a contempt order against the defendant, who had failed to comply with an order to place disputed cryptocurrency assets with a neutral custodian.

The court granted substitutional service by email, noting the defendant's sophistication with technology and his evasion of personal service.

The court extended the prior order and issued a warrant for the defendant's arrest under Rule 60.11(4) to compel his attendance at a contempt hearing, emphasizing the need for his participation in the novel legal issues surrounding blockchain technology.

The remaining defendants brought a motion to dismiss the plaintiffs' action for abuse of process, arguing that the plaintiffs failed to immediately disclose a settlement agreement with a co-defendant.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that the settling defendant did not switch sides or alter the adversarial orientation of the parties.

The settlement merely let a minor player out of the lawsuit in exchange for further documentary disclosure, which did not change the litigation landscape entirely.

In a mortgage enforcement action, the defendant mortgagor brought an urgent motion seeking to discharge the plaintiff's mortgages upon payment into court of a reduced amount to be fixed by the court.

The mortgagor had arranged a last-minute sale of the property that would not yield sufficient proceeds to pay the full amount claimed by the mortgagee.

The court declined to schedule an urgent hearing to summarily assess the disputed mortgage amounts, noting the urgency was self-imposed and the mortgagee would be prejudiced by releasing its security without full payment.

The court ordered that discharges be granted only upon payment of the full amounts claimed, with contested amounts to be paid into court or trust.

The applicants sought an urgent injunction to prevent the closing of a commercial real estate transaction pursuant to a second mortgagee's power of sale, scheduled for the following day.

The court declined to schedule the urgent motion, finding that the urgency was self-induced as the notice of sale was served months prior.

The court also noted that the alleged irreparable harm was purely monetary and raised concerns that the proceeding should have been brought in the Central East Region where the property is located, rather than Toronto.