Jacob R.W. Damstra

The Corporation of the Town of Erin appealed a sentence imposed on Patricia Kentner for an illegal dumping/landfill by-law offence.

The original court imposed a $5,000 fine but declined a discretionary special fine, citing Kentner's diminished moral blameworthiness (her son was the operating mind), the principle of totality (remediation costs for GRCA charges), and crucially, the lack of accurate estimates for the landfill volume.

The appeal focused on whether the Justice of the Peace erred in declining the special fine, particularly regarding the application of the totality principle and the reliance on inaccurate estimates.

The appellate court dismissed the appeal, upholding the original decision, finding no palpable and overriding error in the Justice of the Peace's finding that accurate estimates were lacking, which was the paramount reason for not imposing the special fine.

This is a costs endorsement for three inter-related appeals (C66633, C64430, and C64479).

The parties resolved costs for appeal C64479.

For appeals C64430 and C66633, the Court found that success was mixed, and therefore, there would be no order as to costs for those appeals.

The parties made written submissions regarding the costs of the appeal and a related motion for leave to adduce fresh evidence.

The Court of Appeal ordered no costs as between the respondent and the Nealon appellants.

The respondent was awarded costs of the appeal on a partial indemnity basis in the amount of $40,000, inclusive of disbursements and HST, against the Garber appellants.

The appellants appealed a trial judgment finding that a dock they constructed on Lake Simcoe constituted a private nuisance to the neighbouring respondent.

The trial judge had ordered a mandatory injunction for the dock's removal, punitive damages of $100,000, and substantial indemnity costs.

The Court of Appeal upheld the finding of nuisance and the mandatory injunction, noting the dock substantially and unreasonably interfered with the respondent's ability to use their boat.

The Court also upheld the punitive damages against the property owners (Garber) due to their refusal to remedy the nuisance.

However, the Court allowed the appeal in part by setting aside the punitive damages against the contractor (Nealon) and reducing the costs awarded against him to a partial indemnity scale, finding his conduct did not warrant such exceptional penalties.

This is an appeal from a jury trial in a personal injury case arising from a single-vehicle crash.

The plaintiffs (Tuffnail family) were injured, and liability was apportioned among the driver (Meekes), the host (Bolton), the bartender (Coulthard), and the plaintiff (Tuffnail).

Multiple parties appealed the post-verdict rulings.

The Court of Appeal found that Coulthard was "jointly liable" with Meekes for the purposes of OPCF 44R, allowing State Farm to deduct Coulthard's insurance limits, thereby reducing State Farm's payout to the Tuffnails.

The court clarified that State Farm must share subrogation recoveries with the Tuffnails on a pro rata basis until the Tuffnails receive full indemnification under the judgment, correcting the trial judge's order that limited it to the OPCF 44R endorsement.

The court upheld the trial judge's decision on Coulthard's several liability to Bolton, rejecting the argument for reapportionment of fault without Meekes.

The court found the trial judge erred in awarding prejudgment interest higher than the bank rate, reducing it to 1.3% as market rates did not justify a higher rate and the "expectation" factor was inappropriate.

Finally, the court upheld the denial of Coulthard's request to amend pleadings to add a limitation defence post-verdict due to non-compensable prejudice.

The appellant appealed a trial judge's decision to impute an income of $50,000 to the respondent for purposes of calculating spousal support.

The trial judge had found that the respondent was intentionally underemployed and determined that he was capable of earning between $35-$40 per hour, equivalent to approximately $75,000 annually for at least two-thirds of the year.

The Court of Appeal found no palpable and overriding error, no legal error, nor any error in principle in the trial judge's determination and dismissed the appeal.

The Municipality of the Northern Bruce Peninsula appealed a decision of the Ontario Court of Justice that had quashed convictions for breaches of the Building Code Act, 1992.

The appeal judge had applied an outdated limitation period under section 36(8) of the BCA, relying on R. v. Pickles, which held that the one-year limitation period ran from the date construction was completed.

However, section 36(8) had been amended on July 1, 2010, to provide that the limitation period commenced from the date the facts first came to the knowledge of an officer or chief building official.

The Court of Appeal found that the prosecution was instituted within one year of the Municipality's initial knowledge of the structure and that the appeal judge had erred in law by applying the wrong limitation period.

The convictions and sentences were reinstated.

This appeal concerns a class action brought by Mr. Submarine Ltd. franchisees against Maple Leaf Foods Inc. following a 2008 listeria contamination outbreak.

The franchisees claimed damages for economic losses arising from reputational harm allegedly caused by their public association with Maple Leaf during the recall.

The motion judge found that Maple Leaf owed a duty of care to the franchisees both in relation to the supply of fit products and regarding representations about product safety.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding that while Maple Leaf may owe a duty to supply safe products, this duty is owed to end consumers, not franchisees, and does not extend to protecting against reputational harm or pure economic losses.

The court also found that Maple Leaf's undertaking regarding product safety did not encompass protection of the franchisees' reputational interests.

The applicant, a Justice of the Peace facing a judicial misconduct complaint, brought a motion for a temporary stay of the Hearing Panel's proceedings pending his application for judicial review of the Complaints Committee's decision to refer the matter to a hearing.

The respondent brought a cross-motion to quash the judicial review application for prematurity.

The court held that the judicial review application was manifestly premature, as all of the applicant's arguments could be raised before the Hearing Panel.

The court also dismissed the motion for a stay, finding that the applicant failed to meet the test for a stay of proceedings.

The appellant appealed the dismissal of his Small Claims Court medical negligence action.

He argued that the deputy judge erred by presiding over a motion to dismiss under Rule 12.02 after having presided over a settlement conference in the same matter, relying on the Court of Appeal's decision in Hussain regarding summary judgment motions.

The Superior Court dismissed the appeal, finding that a Rule 12.02 motion is not analogous to a summary judgment motion and that the Small Claims Court Rules grant broad powers to dismiss unmeritorious claims, particularly where the appellant failed to provide required expert reports.

The respondents brought a motion to dismiss or quash the appellant's appeal of a Small Claims Court decision that dismissed his medical negligence action.

The appellant argued the motion judge lacked jurisdiction to hear the motion to dismiss because he had previously presided over a settlement conference in the same matter.

The Divisional Court declined to dismiss or quash the appeal, finding that the jurisdictional argument regarding the settlement conference judge presiding over the motion was not manifestly devoid of merit.

However, the court struck out the majority of the appellant's notice of appeal for being frivolous, vexatious, and an abuse of process, leaving only the jurisdictional ground to be argued at the appeal hearing.

Five patients of Dr. Cathy Frank, an obstetrician and gynecologist, brought separate actions for medical negligence and breach of fiduciary duty.

The actions were commenced between September 2012 and August 2013, outside the two-year limitation period under the Limitations Act, 2002.

The defendants moved for summary judgment on the basis that the claims were statute-barred.

The motion judge granted the motions, finding that the plaintiffs had not acted with reasonable diligence to discover their claims.

The plaintiffs appealed, arguing that the motion judge erred in interpreting the discoverability principle and that a press release issued in November 2011 by counsel for the plaintiffs should have restarted the limitation period.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeals, upholding the motion judge's decision.