Joël M. Dubois

The appellant sought a stay of execution of a possession order pending appeal of a summary judgment decision.

The property was mortgaged to Equitable Bank for $610,000.

The appellant defaulted on payments in September 2023 and failed to comply with a forbearance agreement.

The lower court granted summary judgment for possession and costs.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the motion for stay, finding no serious issue to be tried on appeal, no irreparable harm, and that the balance of convenience did not favour granting the stay.

The appellant had admitted default and the mortgage terms clearly permitted the lender to demand full payment and take possession.

The self-represented applicant sought judicial review of a decision by the Complaints Director of the Law Enforcement Complaints Agency (LECA) to screen out his police conduct complaint.

The applicant also moved to set aside a motion judge's decision refusing to add certain internal LECA documents to the record of proceeding.

The Divisional Court dismissed the motion, finding no error in the motion judge's application of the law regarding the scope of the record.

The Court also dismissed the judicial review application, concluding that the screening decision was reasonable, procedurally fair, and did not give rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias.

The Complaints Director reasonably exercised his discretion to consolidate the applicant's complaint with an ongoing statutory review of a related prior complaint.

The defendants brought a motion seeking to dismiss the plaintiffs' summary judgment motion, arguing that the Ontario court lacked jurisdiction and that the motion constituted an abuse of process due to a prior Quebec court order concerning share ownership.

The defendants also sought to add Shawn Gascon as a party.

The court dismissed the defendants' request to dismiss the summary judgment motion, finding that the issues of jurisdiction and abuse of process should be properly addressed within the context of the summary judgment motion itself, and that the cited rules (21.01(3)(a) and (d)) did not grant authority to dismiss a motion, only an action.

However, the court granted the defendants' request to add Shawn Gascon as a defendant, deeming him a necessary party to the action.

The defendants moved for an order compelling the plaintiff to re-attend discovery and for the defendants to be present during her examination.

The plaintiff cross-moved to exclude the defendants from her discovery and from each other's discoveries, citing psychological distress.

The court dismissed the plaintiff's motion, affirming the inherent right of parties to attend discoveries.

While not finding exceptional circumstances for full exclusion, the court ordered the plaintiff's examination to proceed via video conference, with the plaintiff and her counsel in one room and the defendants and their counsel in another, to mitigate potential distress.

The plaintiff was ordered to pay costs thrown away due to the cancellation of the original examinations.

The plaintiff, the Medical Council of Canada, brought an unopposed motion for a partial sealing order in an action alleging the defendants appropriated confidential clinical examination exercises for a preparatory course.

The court applied the Sierra Club test and granted the sealing order to protect the integrity of the examination system, the identity of a whistleblower, personal information of the defendants, and the identities of course participants.

The plaintiff in a slip and fall action brought a motion to compel the attendance of a specific store manager for examination for discovery on behalf of the corporate defendants.

The defendants refused to produce the manager, providing medical evidence that she was suffering from terminal cancer and was medically unfit to attend.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that the defendants met the heavy onus required to excuse a selected corporate representative from discovery on medical grounds.

Costs were awarded to the defendants.

The applicant police services board sought judicial review of a municipal by-law that disbanded the local police force in favour of contracting with the Ontario Provincial Police.

The applicant argued the municipality breached its duty of procedural fairness during the consultation process and that the decision was tainted by bias and bad faith.

The Divisional Court granted the applicant public interest standing but dismissed the application.

The court held that the municipality's legislative decision required a lower level of procedural fairness, which was met through public meetings, online engagement, and deputations, and found no evidence of bias or bad faith among the municipal councillors.

The appellants, holding foreign arbitral awards against the Kyrgyz Republic, sought declarations that the Republic owned shares in Centerra Gold Inc. registered to Kyrgyzaltyn JSC, a state-owned corporation.

The applications judge dismissed the applications, finding no evidence of a transfer of rights, express trust, or resulting trust.

The Court of Appeal upheld the decision, confirming that the governing agreement unambiguously established Kyrgyzaltyn as the beneficial owner of the shares and that the presumption of resulting trust was rebutted by the evidence of intention.

Following an appeal, cross-appeal, and fresh evidence motion where the respondents were successful, the parties made submissions on costs.

The respondents claimed over $98,000 in total on a partial indemnity scale, while the appellants argued no costs should be awarded or, alternatively, a significantly reduced amount.

Applying the Boucher principles, the Court of Appeal fixed costs at $30,000 for the Receiver and $7,500 for the trust company, noting the appellants' alternative of not suing and the trust company's minor role in the appeal.

The appellants appealed a motion judge's order approving a court-appointed receiver's recommendation to sell a contaminated property to the polluter and settle related damage claims.

The appellants argued the property and claims were undervalued and sought to introduce fresh evidence alleging the motion judge was pressured into releasing his decision.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the receiver acted providentially and the settlement was commercially reasonable.

The Court allowed the receiver's cross-appeal, setting aside the motion judge's order granting the appellants leave to sue the receiver, as the motion judge applied the wrong legal test.