Jacob Pollice

The court considered a request by the Toronto Police Service Board and Detective Constable Matthew Mungal to dismiss the proceeding under Rule 2.1.01 as frivolous, vexatious, or an abuse of process.

The action, brought by J. Craig Anderson as litigation guardian for his son, alleged failures by the Toronto District School Board and others to accommodate the minor plaintiff’s disabilities and respond to bullying and misconduct.

The court declined to dismiss the action under Rule 2.1.01, finding the claim was bona fide and did not exhibit the hallmarks of a frivolous or vexatious proceeding.

The court emphasized the importance of access to justice for self-represented litigants and directed the parties to attend a case conference.

The Crown applied to designate the offender as a dangerous offender following a conviction for arson.

The offender has severe cognitive disabilities and a history of trauma, and sets fires as a coping mechanism.

The court found that the offender met the criteria for a dangerous offender designation and imposed an indeterminate sentence.

However, the court also found that Correctional Service Canada (CSC) historically failed to provide the offender with appropriate, tailored mental health treatment, resulting in prolonged periods of segregation.

The court held that serving an indeterminate sentence in a penitentiary without meaningful treatment would extinguish any hope of rehabilitation and parole, constituting an anticipatory breach of the offender's rights against cruel and unusual punishment under s. 12 of the Charter.

As a remedy under s. 24(1) of the Charter, the court ordered CSC to transfer the offender to a provincial psychiatric hospital within 120 days and retained supervisory jurisdiction to monitor compliance.

The plaintiff abattoir sued the provincial government for negligence, trespass, and conversion arising from the 19-month suspension of its licence and detention of meat products following an investigation into the processing of uninspected and dead animals.

The court dismissed the action, finding that the provincial regulator did not owe a private law duty of care to the plaintiff, as its statutory mandate was to protect public health.

Even if a duty existed, the regulator did not breach the standard of care given the extraordinary circumstances of concurrent criminal investigations, nor did its actions cause the plaintiff's business losses.

The plaintiff, Stuart Weinstein, sued multiple government entities and organizations after failing to obtain a General Condominium Manager license following a training program funded by the Second Career Strategy.

The defendants brought a motion to strike the Amended Statement of Claim for disclosing no reasonable cause of action and being frivolous/vexatious, and also sought to quash summonses issued by the plaintiff.

The court granted the motion to strike, finding that the plaintiff failed to plead material facts for his claims (breach of contract, negligence, intentional interference with economic relations, malfeasance in public office, breach of consumer protection laws) and that many allegations were an abuse of process.

The summonses were quashed as irrelevant and an abuse of process.

Leave to amend the claim was denied.

Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada brought a motion under Rule 2.1.01(6) of the Rules of Civil Procedure to have the plaintiff's claim declared frivolous, vexatious, or an abuse of process.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that the case did not meet the 'clearest of cases' test required for such a determination.

The court emphasized that Rule 2.1.01 is not intended as an easily accessible alternative to a pleadings motion or a motion for summary judgment.

The defendants brought a joint motion to strike the plaintiff's Statement of Claim for failing to plead material facts to support the alleged causes of action, including breach of contract, negligence, public malfeasance, and intentional interference with economic relations.

The plaintiff, who was self-represented, also brought a cross-motion for an injunction.

The court found the Statement of Claim fundamentally deficient, lacking essential factual details.

Despite the deficiencies and prior warnings, the court struck the Statement of Claim but granted the plaintiff leave to amend within 30 days, acknowledging the plaintiff's self-represented status.

The plaintiff's motion for an injunction was dismissed as it failed to meet the requirements for injunctive relief.

Nominal costs were awarded against the plaintiff to two leading defendants.

The applicant brought a motion seeking several orders: dispensing with the requirement to sign a standard undertaking to obtain audio recordings of earlier motions; permission to transcribe those proceedings; direction to publish reasons of a prior motion judge; and permission to challenge the constitutional validity of portions of the Courts of Justice Act.

The respondents took no position on the motion.

The Attorney General of Ontario and Department of Justice Canada argued the motion was not properly before the court and that the Notice of Constitutional Question was a nullity.

The court dismissed the motion for lack of jurisdiction, as the underlying appeal had been quashed in prior proceedings.

The respondents, a corporation and four individual shareholders, sued the Crown for damages arising from two theories of liability: forced incorporation and failure to enforce.

Under the forced incorporation theory, the respondents alleged that Crown misconduct forced them to incorporate their partnership, resulting in tax liability they would have avoided as Indians under section 87 of the Indian Act.

Under the failure to enforce theory, they alleged the Crown failed to properly implement an anti-smuggling initiative, causing them to compete unfairly against unlicensed contraband manufacturers.

The Crown appealed a motion judge's decision refusing to strike the claims.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the forced incorporation appeal, allowing it to proceed to trial, but allowed the failure to enforce appeal in part by striking the fiduciary duty claims while permitting the negligence and misfeasance claims to proceed.

The self-represented applicant commenced an application seeking economic entitlements and recognition of his 'self-determination', employing concepts typical of Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument (OPCA) litigants.

The respondent requested a summary dismissal under Rule 2.1.01 of the Rules of Civil Procedure.

The applicant attempted to unilaterally discontinue the proceeding to avoid dismissal.

The court held that the proceeding had not been properly abandoned under Rule 38.08 and refused to allow abandonment to circumvent the Rule 2.1.01 process.

The court dismissed the application as frivolous, vexatious, and an abuse of process, stayed a related application, and prohibited the applicant from commencing further proceedings without leave.

The applicant, a federal inmate, sought habeas corpus to challenge an involuntary transfer from minimum to maximum security in 2015, alleging procedural unfairness and unreasonableness by Correctional Services of Canada (CSC).

Prior to filing the application, the applicant was voluntarily transferred from maximum to medium security in 2016.

The court found the application moot because the challenged 2015 decision had been superseded by the 2016 voluntary transfer, which reflected a current assessment of his security risk and did not deprive him of residual liberty.

Furthermore, the court found the 2015 involuntary transfer decision to be both procedurally fair and reasonable, as CSC met its disclosure obligations under s. 27 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, providing the inmate with a summary of the case and an opportunity to respond, while properly withholding confidential information for safety and security reasons.

The application was dismissed.