Hilary Anne Brown

The moving party in a property assessment appeal brought a motion seeking leave for its licensed paralegal representative to appear as both an advocate and an expert witness at the hearing.

The Assessment Review Board denied the motion, finding that the fiduciary duty of an advocate to resolutely represent a client is fundamentally incompatible with the duty of an expert witness to provide fair, objective, and non-partisan evidence.

Given the significant and complex unresolved issues regarding the property's current value assessment, the Board concluded that the representative could not competently fulfill both roles.

The defendants brought a motion to strike the plaintiff's claims for conspiracy to injure and intentional interference with economic relations.

The plaintiff, former CEO of a company in receivership, alleged the defendants conspired to breach contracts to harm him personally.

The court struck the conspiracy claim because it failed to explain how the corporate defendant would agree to act against its own interests.

The court also struck the intentional interference claim because a prior release agreement meant the third-party company had no actionable civil wrong against the defendants.

Both claims were struck with leave to amend.

The appellant appealed the dismissal of her application for a declaration that she holds a permanent easement over part of the respondent's property.

The two parties own neighbouring houses in Toronto.

The appellant claimed a right of easement over the passageway between the properties based on historical use by the former owner of her property for cleaning and repairs.

The application judge found that the historical use was permissive and infrequent, not "as of right" as required for a prescriptive easement.

The Court of Appeal upheld the dismissal, finding no error in the application judge's characterization of the occasional permissive use and affirming that the threshold for establishing an easement is high.

The respondent, having successfully defended an application regarding a prescriptive easement and property damage, sought partial indemnity costs of $62,755.63.

The applicant opposed the quantum, arguing the file was overworked and the rates were excessive, noting her own costs would have been approximately $18,000.

The court agreed that the costs claimed exceeded what an unsuccessful party could reasonably expect to pay for this type of litigation.

Costs were assessed and awarded to the respondent in the amount of $40,000 all inclusive.

The applicant sought a declaration of a prescriptive easement over a passageway on the respondent's adjoining property and damages for the pruning of an overhanging tree limb.

The court found that the historical use of the passageway by the applicant's predecessors was permissive and neighbourly, not 'as of right', and thus no prescriptive easement was established.

The court also dismissed the claim for damages, holding that the respondent was legally entitled at common law to prune the overhanging branches of the applicant's tree that intruded onto her property.

The applicant property owner sought a declaration that a 'right of first refusal to purchase' granted to the respondent upon the sale of the property was void due to frustration.

The applicant argued that the withdrawal of an adjacent landowner from a planned land assembly rendered the development project impossible.

The court determined that the right was an option to purchase creating an interest in land, not a mere right of first refusal.

The court dismissed the application, finding that the withdrawal of the adjacent landowner was a foreseen event provided for in the parties' agreements and did not render the provision of the commercial space impossible.

The court also held that the right did not violate the rule against perpetuities.