Gideon Clare Forrest

The Court-appointed liquidator of Morrison Laurier Mortgage Corporation sought approval for the sale of the Corporation's last non-cash asset, an office building.

The motion was opposed by a preferred shareholder who proposed an alternative transaction involving share redemption.

The court granted the liquidator's motion, affirming the deference owed to a liquidator's business judgment and the integrity of the court-approved sales process.

The court found the alternative proposal was not properly submitted within the process and lacked sufficient detail and financial backing.

The appellants appealed a motion judge's decision dismissing their summary judgment motion and granting summary judgment and a permanent stay to the respondents.

The core issue was the appellants' failure to immediately disclose settlement agreements with other defendants, which altered the litigation's adversarial landscape.

The Court of Appeal affirmed the motion judge's finding that these contingent settlement agreements, which included provisions for private evidence gathering and financial incentives for cooperation, changed the adversarial relationship into a cooperative one, triggering the immediate disclosure rule from Handley Estate.

The court reiterated that immediate disclosure is mandatory, regardless of contingencies or confidentiality clauses, and that a stay of proceedings is the appropriate remedy for such an abuse of process.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant, Ali Amiri, brought two appeals from Superior Court decisions concerning certiorari applications related to his criminal trial for threatening his wife.

The first appeal (C70004) challenged the dismissal of his certiorari application to quash a procedural order, which was deemed moot as the trial judge had since decided the underlying issues.

The second appeal (C70051) challenged the granting of certiorari applications by two subpoenaed witnesses (a lawyer and a Legal Aid Ontario employee) to quash their subpoenas, based on solicitor-client privilege and statutory privilege, respectively.

The Court of Appeal summarily dismissed both appeals under s. 685(1) of the Criminal Code, finding them frivolous or vexatious, emphasizing the limited scope of certiorari in criminal proceedings and the lack of merit in the appellant's arguments regarding privilege exceptions.

The appellant, a former lawyer whose license was revoked, appealed a motion judge's decision to dismiss his action against 11 of 16 defendants under Rule 2.1 as frivolous, vexatious, or an abuse of process.

The Court of Appeal upheld the dismissal against the Law Society Tribunal and Legal Aid Ontario, finding the claims abusive due to outstanding appeals and multiplicity of proceedings.

However, the Court allowed the appeal in part, reinstating claims against Doctor Michael Colleton and the Hamilton Police Service, ruling that these claims were not "clearest of cases" for Rule 2.1 dismissal and involved complex legal issues (e.g., absolute privilege, negligent investigation) better suited for a Rule 21 motion.

An appeal from a costs order against Legal Aid Ontario (LAO) as a non-party funder in a family law dispute.

The application judge found that LAO engaged in an abuse of process by failing to adequately monitor and assess the merits of the defence it was funding in a case involving a vulnerable individual.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and set aside the costs award, holding that LAO's role as a statutory funder does not expose it to non-party costs awards absent evidence of bad faith or improper purpose, and that requiring LAO to monitor litigation would impermissibly invade solicitor-client privilege and frustrate the statutory legal aid scheme.

The defendants moved to strike several corporate defendants from a wrongful dismissal action on the basis that the statement of claim disclosed no reasonable cause of action against them.

The plaintiff alleged she was employed by a group of related corporations operating collectively and that they wrongfully dismissed her and withheld personal property.

Applying the test for striking pleadings, the court held that the pleadings and incorporated documents sufficiently alleged a common employer relationship among the corporate defendants.

It was not plain and obvious that the claim against the additional defendants had no reasonable prospect of success.

The motion to strike was therefore dismissed.