John Legge

The parties separated in 2016 after a short marriage.

The father had primary care and sole decision-making responsibility for their 9-year-old daughter for seven years following an incident where the mother surreptitiously removed the child to Winnipeg while experiencing mental health struggles.

The mother sought increased parenting time and joint decision-making responsibility.

The court found it was in the child's best interests to increase the mother's parenting time to 6 overnights out of 14 days, creating a shared parenting arrangement.

Due to high conflict and poor communication, the court ordered a parallel parenting regime where the parents must consult, but the mother has final say on health decisions and the father has final say on education and extra-curriculars.

The mother was also ordered to pay $12,136 in retroactive child support and ongoing set-off child support of $114 per month.

Following the dismissal of a class action concerning medical device implants, the Crown sought over $6.3 million in costs.

The plaintiff argued for no costs based on public interest and access to justice principles under the Class Proceedings Act, and sought costs for an unproven fraud allegation against a witness.

The court significantly reduced the Crown's costs to $385,000, noting the public interest nature of the case, the access to justice mandate, and the Crown's own contribution to the 20-year delay.

OHIP was ordered to pay 10% of the costs, with the remainder payable by the Law Foundation of Ontario.

The plaintiff brought a class action against the Crown alleging negligent regulation of Vitek Proplast temporomandibular joint (TMJ) implants by Health Canada.

The plaintiff claimed that the Crown owed a private law duty of care to the class members and breached that duty by failing to properly regulate the devices, issuing Notices of Compliance negligently, and failing to adequately warn the public or recall the devices.

Following a lengthy common issues trial, the Superior Court of Justice dismissed the action.

The court applied the Anns test and concluded that the Crown did not owe a private law duty of care to the class members, as there was insufficient proximity between the regulator and the unidentifiable group of potential implant recipients.

Furthermore, the court found that even if a duty of care existed, the Crown did not breach the applicable standard of care, as its regulatory actions and responses to the evolving scientific understanding of the implants' risks were reasonable and appropriate.

The plaintiffs brought a motion to strike the statement of defence of the defendant dentist for failure to comply with a production order and for obstruction of production and discovery by his former solicitors.

The court found that the plaintiffs and the co-defendant had conflated the production obligations of the defendant with those of his former law firm, which had previously represented both defendants on a joint retainer.

The court held that the defendant had belatedly complied with his obligations and could not be held responsible for the failings of the former law firm.

The motion to strike the defence was dismissed.

Following an earlier order expunging a creditor’s claim in bankruptcy, the bankrupt sought costs against the creditor.

The court held that costs should follow the cause and found no reason to depart from that principle.

The court allowed the bankrupt’s claimed disbursements for transcripts, copying, commissioners’ fees, and travel, as well as legal fees incurred from prior counsel in connection with the expungement motion.

The creditor was ordered to pay the total amount of the claimed costs.