Heather A. McGee

The union sought judicial review of an arbitrator's decision dismissing a grievance over the assignment of weekend cleanup work.

The employer had begun assigning students to perform weekend cleanup at straight time instead of offering it to regular employees as overtime, despite a Letter of Understanding (LOU) regulating overtime distribution.

The Divisional Court held that the arbitrator's decision was unreasonable because it failed to address the central issue of the LOU's explicit language governing the distribution of weekend overtime to volunteers by seniority.

The matter was remitted to a different arbitrator.

The applicant husband brought a non-suit motion to dismiss the respondent wife's claim to set aside their separation agreement and spousal support release.

The court reviewed the test for a non-suit motion in family law, determining it requires assessing whether the claimant has presented a prima facie case.

The court granted the non-suit motion regarding the separation agreement as a whole, finding no prima facie evidence of unconscionability, lack of understanding, or failure to disclose significant assets.

While the court found a prima facie case regarding the spousal support release due to post-separation income disparities, it ultimately dismissed the claim on a balance of probabilities, concluding the release substantially complied with the objectives of the Divorce Act given the wife's informed decision to waive support.

The applicant sought an order dispensing with the respondent's consent to renew a joint mortgage on their jointly owned matrimonial home.

The respondent had fled Canada to avoid criminal charges and was unresponsive.

The court granted the order under section 23(b) of the Family Law Act, finding that dispensing with consent would preserve the joint asset by allowing the mortgage to be renewed at a more advantageous interest rate without increasing the principal amount or prejudicing the respondent.

Costs were awarded to the applicant on a full recovery basis.

The plaintiffs sought to enforce a personal guarantee signed by the individual defendant for the debts of his corporate vehicle export business.

The defendant had previously obtained an order setting aside a default judgment against him personally, limited to the defence of unconscionability.

At trial, the court applied the Uber framework and found no inequality of bargaining power or improvident bargain, noting the defendant was a sophisticated commercial actor who understood the terms and used the guarantee to continue operating on credit.

The court held the personal guarantee was not unconscionable and restored the default judgment of $243,313.97.

The applicant father brought an urgent motion to stay the enforcement of property and costs payments he owed to the respondent mother under a final family law order, citing financial hardship.

The mother brought a cross-motion to set off her child support obligations against the amounts the father owed her.

The court dismissed the father's motion, finding no legal basis to pre-emptively stay enforcement of a final order based on ability to pay.

On the cross-motion, the court stayed the enforcement of the mother's child support obligations pending further financial disclosure to determine whether a set-off could be structured without materially disadvantaging the children.

The applicant father sought the return of a young child to California under the Hague Convention after the respondent mother remained in Ontario and disobeyed multiple California custody and access orders.

The court held that California had primary jurisdiction, the father never acquiesced to permanent relocation, and proceedings had been commenced within the Article 12 period through the earlier California petition.

The respondent failed to prove a pending refugee claim despite court-ordered disclosure, leading to an adverse inference that any such claim had been abandoned or failed.

The court rejected grave-risk allegations as not credible or reliable and found California fully capable of protecting the child and the respondent if necessary.

The child was ordered returned immediately to California and Ontario was declared to lack jurisdiction over custody and parenting issues.

The applicant's counsel of record appeared at a family law case conference but advised she was on medical leave and would not be speaking to the matter.

A student-at-law, who was not a lawyer, paralegal, or family legal services provider, rose to represent the applicant without indicating he was appearing under the Family Law Pilot Project or that he was a Permitted Candidate.

Upon inquiry, the court determined his Law Society identification card as a Licensing Process-Lawyer Candidate had expired over a year earlier.

The court reviewed the requirements under Rule 4 of the Family Law Rules and the Family Law Pilot Project for non-lawyer representation and ruled that the individual was not permitted to represent the applicant.

The appellant, a self-represented former lawyer, appealed a family law trial judgment, arguing the trial judge erred by refusing to admit his late-served documents into evidence.

The Divisional Court found no procedural unfairness, noting the appellant failed to comply with case management directions and offered inadequate explanations for the delay.

The court also observed that the appellant failed to demonstrate how the excluded documents would have materially changed the trial's outcome.

The appeal was dismissed with costs.

A private lending company brought claims against a law firm and associate lawyer for professional negligence, negligent misrepresentation, and breach of contract arising from a mortgage transaction.

The defendants moved for summary judgment to dismiss the claims.

The court found that while the defendants owed a narrow duty of care to the plaintiff based on their legal opinion letter, the plaintiff failed to provide expert evidence regarding the standard of care required of solicitors conducting mortgage transactions.

Additionally, the plaintiff failed to provide evidence of damages.

The court granted summary judgment dismissing the claims against the defendants, finding no genuine issue requiring trial.

In an uncontested family law trial, the applicant sought a divorce, equalization payment, and damages of $100,000 for intentional infliction of emotional distress arising from three decades of abuse during the marriage.

The respondent failed to participate throughout the proceedings.

The court awarded the full damages claim of $100,000, finding that the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress was established on the evidence of systematic emotional, physical, and sexual abuse.

The court severed the divorce claim for separate motion and dismissed the equalization claim as it had been withdrawn at trial.

No costs were awarded despite the applicant's success, due to inadequate pleading, insufficient legal submissions on damages, and an improperly prepared bill of costs.

The applicant sought judicial review of a college's decision to involuntarily withdraw him from a respiratory therapy program after he failed clinical placements.

He also challenged the college's refusal to process his internal academic appeal due to missed deadlines.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, finding the college's academic decision was reasonable and justified by patient safety concerns.

The court also held that the college did not breach procedural fairness in strictly enforcing its internal appeal deadlines.

The applicant, a property owner leasing space to food trucks, sought an interim injunction to stay the enforcement of the City of Brampton's new Mobile Licensing By-law pending a judicial review application.

The new by-law removed a previous exemption that allowed food trucks to operate in the downtown area with the local BIA's consent, instead permitting them anywhere downtown provided they are 50 metres from a fixed food premise.

The Divisional Court dismissed the motion, applying the RJR-MacDonald test.

The court found no serious issue to be tried as municipal by-laws cannot be challenged for unreasonableness and the City owed no duty of procedural fairness when acting legislatively.

The applicant also failed to demonstrate irreparable harm, and the balance of convenience favoured the public interest in enforcing the validly enacted by-law.

This costs endorsement addresses the allocation of costs following a high-conflict family law trial between Egle Maria Paglialonga and Jairo Umana Arias.

The court found the mother’s conduct in refusing parenting time to the father to be unreasonable and awarded the father $43,505 in costs, reflecting a near full recovery for trial costs and a partial recovery for pretrial conduct.

The decision discusses the principles of reasonableness and proportionality in costs awards, the importance of proper Bill of Costs documentation, and the risks of including privileged information.

The appellant father appealed a temporary order dismissing his urgent motion for the immediate return of his three-year-old son, who had relocated to Sudbury with the respondent mother.

The father argued the motion judge was biased, created a de facto interim relocation, and erred by not ordering the child's return as a remedy for the mother's failure to provide statutory notice of relocation.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding no apprehension of bias and holding that a failure to provide notice under the Divorce Act does not override the best interests of the child analysis.

The court upheld the motion judge's decision to implement a stepped-up parenting schedule rather than uprooting the child pending trial.

This costs decision follows an uncontested family law trial.

The court found that the applicant, Trina Joy Thornhill, engaged in bad faith litigation tactics, including the use of organized pseudolegal commercial arguments and malicious attacks on justice participants.

The court awarded full recovery costs to the respondent, Devon Williams, but reduced the amount claimed to a fair and proportionate sum.

The decision reviews the purposes and principles of costs in family law, the threshold for bad faith, and the court’s discretion in setting costs.

This decision concerns a Rule 15 Motion to Change brought by Mr. Edwards to vary a final child support order.

The trial proceeded on an uncontested basis after Ms. Smith, the support recipient, declined to participate despite multiple opportunities.

The court found that Ms. Smith failed to provide required disclosure regarding the children’s post-secondary status and section 7 expenses, resulting in adverse inferences against her.

The court recalculated child support and section 7 expenses based on updated income information and terminated certain obligations retroactively.

Mr. Edwards was awarded substantial costs due to Ms. Smith’s unreasonable conduct.

This decision concerns an urgent motion in a high-conflict family law proceeding regarding the care of a young child, L. The court granted the respondents' (L's mother and stepfather) motion to transfer primary care and decision-making responsibility for L to them, suspending the applicant grandmother's parenting time pending trial.

The decision details a history of unsubstantiated allegations of abuse, repeated medical and legal interventions, and the impact of ongoing litigation on the child.

The court found that the grandmother's actions were motivated by a desire to control the child and the parents, rather than genuine concern for L's safety, and that the child's best interests required immediate change in residence and decision-making authority.

The applicant, a police officer, sought judicial review of a decision by the Ontario Civilian Police Commission upholding her dismissal for discreditable conduct and insubordination.

The charges stemmed from her failure to attend internal investigations and her use of a personal Twitter account to make inappropriate comments about the Chief of Police and others.

The applicant argued she was denied procedural fairness and accommodation for her post-traumatic stress disorder, and that her dismissal infringed her Charter rights.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, finding the hearing officer reasonably accommodated her and properly proceeded in her absence.

The Court also upheld the Commission's finding that sections 7 and 15 of the Charter were not engaged, and that her dismissal was a proportionate limit on her freedom of expression under section 2(b).

This decision concerns the return of an urgent motion made without notice by Dana-Paula Caringi, seeking preservation and disclosure orders regarding property and bank accounts associated with Mauro Caringi and a third party, Ms. Brown, in the context of family law proceedings.

The court reviews the orders previously granted without notice, analyzes the legal basis for preservation and Norwich orders, and ultimately declines to grant the requested relief, finding the necessary legal and evidentiary thresholds unmet.

The court also addresses costs and removes the matter from the trial list.

The respondents (mother, stepfather, and father) brought a motion for a section 30 assessment under the Children's Law Reform Act, seeking psychological evaluations, which was opposed by the applicant grandmother.

The court declined the request for a section 30 assessment, citing concerns about cost, delay, and necessity given the existing record and the availability of a section 112 report from the Office of the Children’s Lawyer (OCL).

The court ordered the OCL to complete its section 112 report on an expedited basis and requested a priority trial for the parenting dispute.