Graeme Alexander Hamilton

This application addressed which of two innocent parties, Bank of Montreal (BMO) or Asia Pacific International Inc. (API), should bear the loss from a third-party fraud.

An imposter fraudulently obtained a wire transfer of $428,000 from a BMO client's account to API's account for a gold purchase.

API subsequently released the gold to the fraudster.

BMO sought recovery based on a mistake of fact.

The court applied the "two innocent victims" framework, finding BMO was in a better position to prevent the fraud due to its lack of diligence in verifying the imposter's identity.

The court also determined that API could rely on the change of position defence, as its conduct, while lacking diligence, did not constitute wrongful or illegal activity under the Proceeds of Crime Act that would preclude recovery.

BMO's application was dismissed, and the funds were ordered released to API.

The applicants, charged with offences under the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act, brought a motion for a stay of proceedings alleging their s. 11(b) Charter rights to be tried within a reasonable time were infringed.

The total delay from charges to the anticipated end of trial was 44 months.

The court applied the Jordan framework, confirming a 30-month presumptive ceiling for matters proceeding by preferred indictment in the Superior Court.

After deducting defence delay and time attributed to the extradition process as a discrete event (minus a period for Crown lack of diligence), the net delay was calculated at 27 months for one applicant and 26 months and 3 weeks for the other.

As the net delay fell below the 30-month ceiling and the case was particularly complex, the court dismissed the stay applications.

The Ontario Securities Commission approved a settlement agreement between Staff and Home Capital Group Inc. (HCG) and three of its former executives.

The respondents admitted to misleading investors by failing to timely disclose the termination of several brokers and brokerages due to falsified loan applications, which caused a decline in mortgage originations.

The settlement included a $10 million payment by HCG for the benefit of a proposed class action, $500,000 in costs, and administrative penalties totaling $2 million against the individual respondents, who were also reprimanded and prohibited from acting as directors or officers of reporting issuers for varying periods.

The plaintiffs sought leave to amend their Statement of Claim to add new parties and assert additional causes of action, including nuisance, negligence, and various Charter and international covenant claims.

The defendants opposed the amendments and brought motions to strike.

The court denied leave to add new Ministries/Ministers, dismissed claims based on international covenants as not actionable in domestic law, and rejected most Charter claims (specifically s. 7) on the basis of issue estoppel, as these issues had been previously determined by the Environmental Review Tribunal and upheld by the Divisional Court.

However, the court permitted amendments for nuisance and negligence claims against the K2 defendants, acknowledging that the alleged harms were now realized post-construction.

The action against Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Ontario and the Director was dismissed.

The appellant appealed his convictions for dangerous driving causing death, dangerous driving causing bodily harm, and failure to remain at the scene of an accident.

He argued that the trial judge misapprehended material evidence regarding circumstantial identification and that the verdict was unreasonable.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no material misapprehensions of evidence and concluding that a properly instructed jury could have found the appellant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt based on the totality of the evidence.

The moving party obtained a judgment for conversion against a lending corporation that unlawfully seized his equipment.

After the corporation declared bankruptcy, the moving party brought an action against the corporation's insurers under s. 132(1) of the Insurance Act.

The court dismissed the motion for summary judgment, finding that the tort of conversion involves interference with possessory rights, which does not constitute 'injury or damage to property' within the meaning of s. 132(1).

The claim was characterized as pure economic loss, which is not recoverable under the provision.

The applicants requested a review of a Financial Services Tribunal decision that ordered the revocation of their mortgage broker and brokerage licences for providing false documents to a bank.

The Tribunal denied the request for review, finding that the applicants failed to meet the threshold test of providing new evidence or arguments not reasonably available at the time of the original hearing, and were merely attempting to reargue their case.

The accused was charged with operating a motor vehicle with more than 80 mg of alcohol in 100 ml of blood contrary to section 253(b) of the Criminal Code.

The sole issue at trial was whether the accused's detention for approximately eight hours after providing the second breath sample breached his section 9 Charter rights and whether the breath samples should be excluded.

The court found that the accused was arbitrarily detained in breach of section 9 of the Charter because the officer in charge focused too narrowly on the breath readings without conducting a comprehensive assessment of all relevant circumstances.

However, the court declined to exclude the breath samples or stay the proceedings, finding no nexus between the post-evidence breach and the collection of the evidence, and determining that a stay was not warranted as this was not one of the clearest of cases.

This is a Dawson Motion brought by multiple defendants in a drug and firearm investigation known as Project Wheeler.

The defendants sought leave to cross-examine the affiant who deposed to the affidavit in support of a wiretap authorization granted by a Superior Court judge.

The defendants challenged two areas: claims about possession of firearms and statements that observations about meetings were indicative of drug trafficking.

The court dismissed the application, finding that the defendants failed to demonstrate how cross-examination would undermine the preconditions for the wiretap authorization and that the allegations of sweeping generalizations and circular reasoning were not relevant to an attack on facial validity in the circumstances presented.

The court conducted an assessment of damages following a prior ruling that the defendant’s security interest in the plaintiff’s equipment was invalid under s. 89(1) of the Indian Act.

The defendant had seized the equipment based on the invalid security interest, constituting the tort of conversion.

The court determined the fair value of the seized equipment using expert appraisal evidence and awarded damages reflecting the depreciated condition of the equipment.

The court also awarded limited loss of income damages, finding the plaintiff failed to adequately mitigate losses and restricting compensation to a one‑year period with a modest adjustment for borrowing difficulties.

Punitive damages were additionally awarded after the defendant’s agent improperly involved police in what was a civil debt dispute and falsely characterized the plaintiff as a thief.

The appellant, a real estate lawyer, appealed a decision of the Law Society Appeal Panel which ordered a new hearing on allegations of professional misconduct related to his participation in real estate flip transactions.

The original hearing panel had dismissed the fraud allegations, finding a lack of direct evidence from the lenders or participants.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, agreeing with the Appeal Panel that the hearing panel erred in law by failing to consider circumstantial evidence and by incorrectly requiring proof of actual economic loss rather than a mere risk of prejudice to establish fraud.

The appellant lawyer appealed a decision of the Law Society Appeal Panel, which had overturned a Hearing Panel's finding that he did not commit fraud in certain real estate transactions.

The appellant argued the Appeal Panel failed to respect the Hearing Panel's credibility finding that he had an honest but mistaken belief that the lenders knew the actual structure of the transactions.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, agreeing with the Appeal Panel that the Hearing Panel's credibility findings were tainted by its flawed legal analysis of fraud, and upholding the referral to a new Hearing Panel.

The appeal concerned whether a lender could structure a business loan to an on-reserve borrower as a two-step conditional sale transaction in order to obtain effective security over existing chattels situated on reserve.

The court held that the arrangement was merely notional, with no real sale or repurchase, and amounted to an impermissible attempt to circumvent the protection in s. 89(1) of the Indian Act.

Because the transaction was a pure fiction rather than a genuine sale in which rights remained in the seller, it did not fall within s. 89(2).

The appeal from the conversion judgment was dismissed with fixed costs.

The appellant appealed his convictions for possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose and aggravated assault following an altercation where he slashed the victim with a knife.

He raised four grounds of appeal, including fresh evidence of interpreter deficiencies, misapprehension of evidence, improper admission of bad character evidence, and erroneous inferences of credibility.

The Court of Appeal dismissed all grounds, finding the fresh evidence immaterial, the trial judge's conclusions reasonable, the bad character evidence properly contextualized as part of the defence theory, and the credibility inferences appropriate.

The accused was charged with impaired operation of a motor vehicle and operating a motor vehicle with more than 80 mg of alcohol in 100 ml of blood.

A sergeant responded to a radio call about a possible impaired driver at an LCBO store and followed the accused's vehicle into an underground parking garage of an apartment building without attempting to stop him first.

The court found that the sergeant breached the accused's Charter rights under sections 8, 9, and 10(b) by: (1) following the accused into the underground parking garage without legal authority or exigent circumstances; (2) delaying the administration of the approved screening device demand beyond the "forthwith" requirement of section 254(2) of the Criminal Code; and (3) failing to provide the accused with a reasonable opportunity to consult counsel.

The evidence of the breath samples was excluded under section 24(2) of the Charter, and both charges were dismissed.

The appellant, a lawyer whose licence was revoked for participating in mortgage fraud, appealed the Law Society appeal panel's decision affirming the revocation.

He argued that the hearing panel denied him procedural fairness by refusing an adjournment on medical grounds and later granting an adjournment on the condition that he refrain from practising law.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding that the hearing panel properly exercised its discretion in assessing the contradictory medical evidence and balancing the public interest against the appellant's requests.

The appellant appealed her summary conviction for operating a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol level over 80 mgs.

She argued the trial judge misapprehended evidence regarding the arresting officer's reasonable and probable grounds to demand breath samples and whether the samples were taken 'as soon as practicable'.

The Superior Court of Justice found no material misapprehension of the evidence, noting the officer's roadside observations were corroborated and the delays in taking breath samples were adequately explained by the need to secure the collision scene and provide the appellant a reasonable opportunity to consult with duty counsel.

The appeal was dismissed.

The accused pleaded guilty to failing to stop for police and dangerous driving following a high-speed pursuit involving multiple police agencies.

The offender, a First Nations individual, had a prior record involving driving-related offences but had undertaken significant rehabilitation efforts including completing an alcohol treatment program and attending Alcoholics Anonymous.

The court considered the sentencing principles under s. 718.2(e) of the Criminal Code and the Gladue framework, weighing denunciation and deterrence against rehabilitation and the offender’s background circumstances.

The judge concluded that community safety would not be endangered and that a conditional sentence was appropriate for the dangerous driving offence.

The offender received credit for pre-trial custody, a conditional sentence order, probation, and a driving prohibition.

The applicant lawyer, facing a discipline hearing regarding alleged participation in mortgage fraud, sought a stay of the hearing pending his application for judicial review of a Law Society Hearing Panel's refusal to order further disclosure.

The Divisional Court dismissed the motion for a stay, finding that the judicial review application was premature as the tribunal's refusal to order production of documents did not go to its jurisdiction.

The court also found that the applicant would not suffer irreparable harm and that the balance of convenience favoured not staying the discipline proceedings to avoid fragmenting the administrative process.

The appellants appealed the sentence imposed for civil contempt.

They argued the motion judge erred by imposing a significantly longer sentence than suggested by counsel without advising them beforehand.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the motion judge did not owe deference to the trustee's submissions on sentence and that the sentence was fit to vindicate the due administration of justice in the context of the contempts.