Jeremy Wright

The appellant construction company sued the respondent city for alleged breaches of the Occupational Health and Safety Act after discovering asbestos at a work site.

The motions judge granted summary judgment to the city, finding the appellant failed to prove it suffered actual damages and refusing to grant declaratory relief for hypothetical future claims by employees.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, upholding the finding that the appellant's claims for administrative and legal costs lacked evidentiary support, and agreeing that declaratory relief was inappropriate where the dispute had yet to arise and could affect third-party rights.

The defendant sought leave to appeal a decision that set aside the administrative dismissal of the plaintiff's action.

The court applied the two-part test for leave to appeal under the Rules of Civil Procedure.

The court found no conflicting decisions and no good reason to doubt the correctness of the motion judge's application of the Reid principles.

The motion for leave to appeal was dismissed.

The court screened a self-represented plaintiff's action against numerous corporate, individual, and police defendants under rule 2.1.02 of the Rules of Civil Procedure.

Applying the guidance in Gao and the jurisprudence defining frivolous and vexatious proceedings, the court found the statement of claim unintelligible, unsupported by any reasonable grounds, and constituting an abuse of process.

The court held that any proposed summary judgment motion would be doomed to fail and that requiring the defendants to respond would waste court resources.

The action was dismissed, the Registrar was directed to accept no further filings from the plaintiff in the action, and no costs were ordered.

The appellant appealed an order dismissing his motion to compel the City of Ottawa and provincial politicians to disclose information regarding the transit system and the Presto Card.

The motion judge found the court lacked jurisdiction because the appellant had not exhausted his remedies under the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

The Court of Appeal agreed that the application was premature and quashed the appeal, noting it lacked jurisdiction to entertain the appeal absent leave.

The appellant's vehicle was seized by police as proceeds of crime and held under a detention order.

The appellant, claiming to be an innocent third party, commenced a civil action to recover the vehicle and seek damages for its detention.

The Court of Appeal upheld the motion judge's decision to dismiss the action, agreeing that the Criminal Code provisions for innocent third party remedies constitute a complete code, precluding parallel civil proceedings absent allegations of actionable police misconduct.

The appellant appealed a trial judgment ordering it to pay a real estate commission to the respondent broker for the sale of a municipal property.

The trial judge found the parties had an oral agreement that a commission was payable, but disagreed on the rate, and applied section 34(2) of the Real Estate and Business Brokers Act to set the rate at the generally prevailing community rate of 3.75 percent.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding ample evidence to support the trial judge's conclusion of an oral agreement and agreeing that section 34(2) was correctly applied to resolve the dispute over the rate.

The appellant appealed a summary judgment dismissing her claim against the Ottawa Police Service.

The claim arose from her eviction by the sheriff, who called the police for assistance in gaining entry and removing her.

The Court of Appeal found that the police acted under lawful authority and there was no evidence to support the appellant's allegation of theft.

The appeal was dismissed with costs.