Jackie Esmonde

The applicant, Nishnawbe Aski Nation, sought a stay of a coroner's inquest into the death of an aboriginal youth pending an application for judicial review.

The judicial review challenged the Coroner's refusal to issue a summons to a government official regarding the representativeness of First Nations people on the jury roll under the Juries Act.

The Divisional Court granted the stay, finding that the representativeness of the jury roll raised a serious issue, that proceeding with a potentially unrepresentative jury could cause irreparable harm to public confidence, and that the balance of convenience favoured a stay.

The appellants appealed a Small Claims Court decision awarding the respondent $10,000 in damages for false arrest, false imprisonment, and negligent investigation.

The respondent had been arrested for allegedly breaching a bail condition by speaking at a public demonstration.

The Divisional Court allowed the appeal, finding that the trial judge erred by inappropriately using hindsight and conflating the test for negligence with the objective test for reasonable grounds for arrest.

The court held that the arresting officers had reasonable and probable grounds to arrest the respondent based on the information available to them at the time, and therefore met the standard of care.

The appellants were previously successful in their appeal to stay a libel action brought by the respondent.

The Court of Appeal awarded the appellants their costs of the appeal and the proceeding before the motion judge on a partial indemnity scale.

The parties could not agree on the quantum of costs for the motion.

The appellants sought $32,773.37.

Noting that the case involved a novel application of the real and substantial connection test in a libel context and was a matter of public interest, the court fixed the costs of the motion at a modest $7,500 inclusive of disbursements and GST.

The respondent sued the Washington Post and three of its reporters for defamation regarding two articles published in 1997.

At the time of publication, the respondent lived in Kenya and the newspaper had minimal circulation in Ontario.

The respondent moved to Ontario three years later and commenced the action.

The appellants brought a motion to stay the action on the basis that Ontario lacked jurisdiction.

The motion judge dismissed the motion.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal applied the Muscutt factors and found no real and substantial connection between the action and Ontario.

The appeal was allowed and the action was stayed.

The applicant, a university student, sought judicial review of the university president's decision to suspend him for three years for participating in unauthorized demonstrations.

The respondents brought a motion to quash the application, arguing that a newly scheduled university discipline tribunal hearing provided an adequate alternative remedy.

The applicant brought a cross-motion to stay the tribunal hearing pending the judicial review.

The court dismissed the motion to quash, finding the tribunal was not an adequate alternative remedy due to jurisdictional questions and a reasonable apprehension of bias, as the only appeal would be to the president herself.

The court granted the cross-motion to stay the tribunal hearing, applying the RJR-Macdonald test for interlocutory injunctions.