Jennifer Woollcombe

The appellant appealed an arbitration award determining retroactive and prospective child support and costs following a dispute arising from a separation agreement.

The arbitrator had found that the payor parent failed to provide adequate financial disclosure and imputed substantial income based on corporate earnings, discretionary expenses, and adverse inferences under the Federal Child Support Guidelines.

The arbitrator ordered retroactive child support back to 2009 and prospective support based on table amounts, together with significant arbitration costs.

The court held that the arbitrator committed no reviewable error in interpreting the separation agreement, imputing income, attributing corporate pre‑tax income, or awarding retroactive support, and deferred to the arbitrator’s factual and credibility findings.

However, the court found the arbitrator’s reasoning on costs insufficient and reduced the costs award.

The applicants, charged with multiple drug trafficking offences, brought an application under s 11(b) of the Charter alleging unreasonable delay.

The total delay from arrest to the anticipated end of trial was approximately 39 months.

The court applied the Morin framework, attributing much of the delay to inherent time requirements and defence actions, calculating institutional delay at just over 16 months.

Finding minimal prejudice to the applicants' liberty and fair trial rights, the court concluded the balance favoured society's interest in a trial on the merits and dismissed the stay application.

The accused was charged with possession of crack cocaine for the purpose of trafficking and obstructing police after officers observed what they believed to be a hand-to-hand drug transaction from her vehicle.

The accused testified she was retrieving a lost cell phone, and her boyfriend testified he had hidden the drugs in her car without her knowledge.

The court found the defence evidence raised a reasonable doubt regarding her knowledge of the drugs, resulting in acquittals on the drug charges.

However, the accused was convicted of obstructing police for actively resisting her arrest.

The accused brought a Charter application seeking a stay of proceedings on the basis that the delay to trial violated his right to be tried within a reasonable time under s. 11(b) of the Charter.

The total time from charge to anticipated trial was nearly two years.

Applying the framework from R. v. Morin, the court analyzed the length of delay, reasons for delay, waiver, and prejudice.

Although the court found approximately 15.5 months of Crown and institutional delay, this remained within the 16–18 month guideline for matters proceeding through two levels of court.

While the accused experienced some prejudice due to bail conditions and separation from family, the court concluded the prejudice attributable to delay was not significant enough to outweigh society’s interest in trying a serious drug importation offence.

The appellant appealed a Small Claims Court decision awarding the respondent damages for defective truck repairs and lost income from an invalid repairer's lien seizure.

The Divisional Court upheld the trial judge's findings that the appellant caused the transmission damage and lacked a valid lien due to an unsigned authorization.

However, the court found the trial judge erred in calculating the offset for the initial clutch and non-clutch repairs.

The appeal was allowed in part, reducing the respondent's damages award from $2,681.62 to $538.46.

The defendant brought a motion for summary judgment seeking dismissal of a claim alleging damages arising from personal service of motion materials at the plaintiff’s residence.

The plaintiff alleged harassment, emotional distress, and the inclusion of a purported “death threat letter.” The court found the allegations to be unsupported, frivolous, vexatious, and an abuse of process.

Assuming without deciding that a tort of harassment could exist, the court held that a single lawful attendance to serve legal documents could not constitute outrageous conduct or establish the required elements of the tort.

Summary judgment was granted and the action against the defendant was dismissed.

The appellant appealed a conviction for driving with a blood alcohol concentration exceeding 80 mg.

The trial judge had found that the police failed to make the formal breath demand as soon as practicable under the Criminal Code, constituting a s. 8 Charter breach, but admitted the certificate of analysis under s. 24(2).

On appeal, the appellant argued that the failure to make the demand promptly should disentitle the Crown from relying on the presumption of identity and that the certificate should have been excluded.

The court held that the presumption of identity under s. 258(1)(c) remains available even if the demand was not made as soon as practicable, and that the proper remedy for any breach lies under the Charter exclusion analysis.

Applying the Grant framework, the trial judge’s decision to admit the evidence was entitled to deference and disclosed no error.

The plaintiff sought over $52 million in damages alleging that casino operators and a Crown gaming agency fixed casino games using computer technology, failed to disclose risks to players, and over-served alcohol.

The casino operators moved for summary judgment while the gaming regulator moved to strike the claim.

The court found the plaintiff produced no evidence supporting allegations that electronic games were predetermined or non-random and accepted uncontroverted evidence explaining the operation of random number generators and regulatory oversight.

Claims relating to failure to disclose and over-service of alcohol also lacked evidentiary support.

The regulator’s motion to strike was granted because statutory gaming regulators owe duties to the public at large rather than private duties of care to individual gamblers, and the pleadings disclosed no recognized cause of action.

The applicant, a grandson of the deceased who died intestate, sought a declaration that bank and investment accounts held jointly between the deceased and her surviving son formed part of the estate.

The respondent son argued that the accounts were joint with right of survivorship and therefore passed to him outside the estate.

Applying the presumption of resulting trust articulated in Pecore v. Pecore, the court held that the respondent failed to rebut the presumption with sufficient evidence of the deceased’s intention to gift survivorship rights.

The evidence consisted largely of the respondent’s self‑serving assertions and unsupported bank correspondence, while documentary banking records and other objective indicators of intention were absent.

The court concluded the jointly held funds reverted to the estate and were to be distributed pursuant to the intestacy regime under the Succession Law Reform Act.

The applicant brought a motion for interim child support, child support arrears, and section 7 expenses, seeking to impute an income of $78,000 to the respondent.

The court found the respondent had unexplained bank deposits in 2014 and imputed his income at $64,589.33 for that year.

For 2015, the court found the respondent intentionally underemployed and imputed an income of $28,080.00 based on his capacity to work full-time.

Interim child support and section 7 arrears were calculated at $8,364.97, which were satisfied by funds previously released from the sale of the matrimonial home.

The accused was convicted of possession of heroin for the purpose of trafficking.

The Crown and defence agreed on a joint submission of four years' imprisonment but disagreed on whether the accused should receive pre-sentence custody credit for time spent in custody on separate, outstanding charges in another jurisdiction.

The court accepted the joint submission of four years but declined to grant credit for the time served on the outstanding charges, holding that such credit should be determined when those specific charges are resolved.

The accused was charged with possession of heroin for the purpose of trafficking.

On a blended voir dire, the accused alleged that his warrantless arrest and subsequent search violated his rights under ss. 8 and 9 of the Charter, seeking exclusion of the heroin under s. 24(2).

The court found that the arresting officer had both subjective and objective reasonable and probable grounds to arrest the accused based on surveillance observations of a suspected drug transaction.

Consequently, there were no Charter violations.

The court further held that even if a breach had occurred, the evidence would not be excluded under s. 24(2) as the officer acted in good faith and the evidence was reliable and essential.

The applicants, municipal election candidates, sought relief from forfeiture under s. 98 of the Courts of Justice Act after failing to file their campaign financial statements and auditor’s reports by the deadline required under the Municipal Elections Act.

The court applied the equitable relief-from-forfeiture framework and found the failure resulted from inadvertence and misplaced reliance on campaign and accounting assistance, not indifference to statutory obligations.

The court held the applicants acted in good faith, remedied the omission promptly, and that the harm caused by a five- and six-day delay was negligible compared to the severe statutory consequences.

Relief was granted, the filing period was extended by ten days, and no costs were ordered.

The applicant sought relief from forfeiture under s. 98 of the Courts of Justice Act after filing his municipal election financial disclosure materials one hour and thirteen minutes late.

Applying the equitable relief from forfeiture factors from Saskatchewan River Bungalows, the court found the applicant acted in good faith, made diligent efforts to comply, and committed only a minor breach.

The court held that the consequences of losing elected office and being barred from the next election were disproportionate to the negligible harm caused by the delay.

The filing deadline was extended for ten days, the clerk was directed to accept the filing if submitted within that period, and the statutory penalties under the Municipal Elections Act were lifted upon timely filing during the extension.

The moving parties sought to set aside a negotiated settlement agreement and obtain summary judgment, alleging multiple breaches including unilateral listing conduct, temporary removal of a property from the market, defamatory communications, and failure to divide corporate assets.

The court held that Rule 49.09 did not apply because the agreement was a negotiated settlement rather than an accepted offer to settle.

In any event, the alleged misconduct did not justify refusing enforcement or setting the settlement aside, as the complained-of conduct either did not amount to breach or was insufficiently serious.

Ancillary relief compelling financial statements and asset inventories was also refused, with the court directing the parties to proceed through the settlement’s agreed mediation and accounting mechanisms.

The plaintiff brought a motion for summary judgment against his wife, who had been noted in default, for funds she allegedly diverted and stole from him.

The court granted summary judgment for $466,420.22, finding that the debt would survive bankruptcy due to fraud.

However, the court dismissed the plaintiff's requests for a vesting order over the defendant's personal property and for an order redirecting hypothetical future settlement funds, as the legal requirements for such orders were not met.

The moving party father brought a motion for access to his two-year-old daughter.

The responding party mother argued the court lacked jurisdiction because the motion was brought after a 30-day deadline set in a previous order.

The court extended the time to hear the motion under Rule 3(5) of the Family Law Rules, noting the father had not seen the child in several months.

The mother sought supervised access, but the court found no basis for her concerns or that the father was a flight risk.

The court ordered temporary unsupervised access twice a week and prohibited the removal of the child from Ontario.