John I. Laskin

The appellant appealed his sentence of 18 months' imprisonment for a sophisticated fraud committed while on probation for another crime of dishonesty.

The majority of the Court of Appeal upheld the sentence, finding it was not demonstrably unfit given the aggravating circumstances, including the appellant's prior record and lack of remorse.

Laskin J.A. dissented, finding the sentence unfit based on recent sentencing decisions.

The appellant appealed his conviction and sentence for drug offences.

The Crown conceded that the guilty plea, entered in error at the conclusion of a Charter voir dire, should be struck.

The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge erred in minimizing the seriousness of a section 8 Charter breach, which occurred when the appellant was searched without reasonable and probable grounds before entering a police cruiser after being detained in freezing weather.

The Court concluded that the seriousness of the breach favoured exclusion of the evidence under section 24(2) of the Charter.

The appeal was allowed, the convictions were set aside, and acquittals were entered.

Following an appeal where the appellant was partially successful, the parties sought a determination on costs.

The respondent had made a pre-trial offer to settle for $275,000, and the appeal reduced her damages to $394,884.52, which still exceeded the offer.

The trial costs order of party and party costs to the offer date and solicitor and client costs thereafter was maintained.

For the appeal, the appellant succeeded on two of six issues.

The court awarded the appellant one-third of its party and party costs of the appeal, noting the respondent's pre-appeal offer did not address all issues on which the appellant succeeded.

The parties separated after eight years of marriage.

The husband's income doubled to over $4.1 million annually after separation.

The trial judge declined to award the Guidelines table amount of over $65,000 per month for four children, instead awarding $16,000 per month under s. 4 based on the family's modest pre-separation lifestyle.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal upheld the finding that the table amount was inappropriate but found the trial judge erred by failing to adequately consider the post-separation increase in the husband's income and the reasonableness of the wife's proposed budget.

The Court of Appeal increased the child support to $32,000 per month and increased the required life insurance coverage to $2 million.

The appellant appealed his conviction for sexual assault, which was based on an alleged attempt to have anal intercourse with the complainant without her consent.

The Court of Appeal noted that the trial judge and counsel had not referred to this incident during the trial, and the only evidence supporting the conviction came from the appellant himself.

The Court concluded that there was no evidence of intent, rendering the conviction unreasonable.

The appeal was allowed, the conviction and sentence for sexual assault were set aside, and an acquittal was entered.

The appellants, an engineer and his company, sued for defamation after the respondent lawyer wrote a letter on behalf of his client, a gas company, describing the engineer's allegations about a gas heater explosion as 'professionally irresponsible if not deceitful or at worst malicious'.

The trial judge dismissed the action on the basis of qualified privilege.

The Court of Appeal upheld the decision, finding that the lawyer's letter was written on an occasion of qualified privilege to protect his client's interests, was sent only to those who received the engineer's initial letter, was not motivated by malice, and used language that was reasonably appropriate to the occasion.

The appellant appealed a four-year consecutive sentence imposed for robbery and robbery with a firearm, arguing it created an unjustified disparity with his co-accused.

The co-accused, who was older and played an equal role, received a global sentence of seven years for the same offences.

The Court of Appeal agreed that the appellant's global sentence should not be four years longer than his co-accused's.

The appeal was allowed, and the four-year sentence was varied to be concurrent with the appellant's existing seven-year sentence.

The appellant sued the respondents for libel arising from a newspaper article.

Prior to filing a statement of defence, one of the individual respondents successfully moved to strike the claim against him on the basis that he was not personally served with a libel notice under s. 5(1) of the Libel and Slander Act.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, holding that the alternative mode of service in s. 5(1)—delivery to a grown-up person at the defendant's chief office—applies to all defendants, including individuals.

Delivery of the notice to an assistant at the respondent's campaign headquarters constituted effective service.

The Crown appealed the 12-month conditional sentence imposed on the respondent for two counts of sexual assault against a four-year-old child.

The Court of Appeal found the trial judge erred by fixing the sentence length without regard to whether it would be served in the community or in jail.

The Court imposed an additional conditional sentence of 12 months less one day, without house arrest, to reflect denunciation and deterrence and to allow for continued treatment.

The Court declined to interfere with the trial judge's discretion regarding a s. 161(1) order and declined to impose a s. 109(1) firearms prohibition as the issue of whether the offence involved violence was not raised at trial.

The appellant appealed in writing from the sentence imposed for breach of recognizance, failing to comply with a recognizance, and unlawful entry into a dwelling house.

He argued that the sentence was excessive, that the trial judge failed to consider pre-trial custody, that his trial counsel was incompetent, and that his right to a speedy trial was violated.

The Court of Appeal found no merit to the appeal, noting the trial judge properly accounted for pre-trial custody and there was no evidence to support the claims of incompetence or delay.

Leave to appeal sentence was refused.

The appellant, a Convention refugee, was ordered deported after the Minister determined he constituted a danger to the security of Canada due to his involvement in terrorism.

After exhausting domestic remedies, the appellant petitioned the UN Human Rights Committee, which requested Canada stay the deportation.

When Canada refused, the appellant sought an injunction, arguing that his deportation violated section 7 of the Charter and his legitimate expectations.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that unincorporated international treaties do not create binding domestic obligations and that the doctrine of legitimate expectations does not grant substantive rights to remain in Canada.

However, the Court granted a 30-day stay to permit the appellant to seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The appellant was convicted of sexual assault against a young girl.

On appeal, the appellant argued that the trial judge failed to instruct the jury on the presumption of innocence, despite instructing them on reasonable doubt in accordance with Lifchus.

The Court of Appeal held that without an instruction on the presumption of innocence, the jury could not properly apply the burden of proof.

The failure to object by counsel could not cure such a fundamental error.

The appeal was allowed, convictions quashed, and a new trial ordered.

The appellant appealed a decision striking his statement of claim against a Crown Attorney for malicious prosecution.

The motion judge found the claim contained only a bald allegation of malice and refused leave to amend.

The Court of Appeal agreed, noting that the potential to infer malice from the absence of a reasonable prospect of conviction does not relieve a plaintiff from pleading full particulars under Rule 25.06(8).

The appeal was dismissed.

The landlord appealed the dismissal of its action for rent arrears against the tenants.

The trial judge had found that the landlord's demolition of a dilapidated barn and frame house on the 20-acre leased property constituted 'partial destruction of the premises' under the lease, thereby suspending the tenants' obligation to pay rent.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, holding that the trial judge failed to interpret the lease as a whole to achieve a commercially sensible result.

The Court found that the term 'premises' in the destruction clause applied only to the private dwelling, and thus the demolition of the outbuildings did not suspend the rent obligation.

Judgment was granted for the total rent owing.

The appellant father appealed an order granting him limited, supervised access to his three-year-old son of one visit per year.

The application judge had restricted access due to the father's history of domestic violence, failure to exercise previous access, and the child's young age.

The Court of Appeal upheld the requirement for supervised access to establish a relationship but found one visit per year too restrictive.

The court varied the order to allow the father to exercise supervised access three times per year for a seven-day period each time.

The appellant appealed multiple sexual offence convictions arising from allegations by three young complainants, challenging the constitutionality of the anal intercourse counts, the jury charge on reasonable doubt, expert evidence on child sexual abuse disclosure patterns, the absence of a clear and sharp Vetrovec warning, and the admission of similar fact evidence.

The court quashed the three s. 159 convictions because the provision had been declared unconstitutional.

The remaining grounds failed: the charge as a whole did not create a reasonable likelihood that the jury convicted on an improper standard, the expert evidence was necessary to explain inconsistent disclosures and recantations, no mandatory strong Vetrovec warning was required, and the similar fact ruling attracted deference.

The appeal was otherwise dismissed.

The appellant, who suffers from AIDS, uses marihuana for medicinal purposes and obtained a personal exemption under s. 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

He applied for a declaration that his s. 7 Charter rights were infringed because the exemption did not protect his caregivers from criminal liability and the government failed to provide a safe supply of marihuana.

The Court of Appeal held that while the provincial superior court had jurisdiction to hear the constitutional challenge to the Act, the appellant failed to establish a s. 7 violation.

The Act itself did not preclude caregiver exemptions, and the appellant was not dependent on the government for his supply.

Following a fatal motor vehicle accident caused by an uninsured driver, a dispute arose between two insurers over the priority of their respective policies in funding the settlement.

The motions judge held that the driver's State Farm Fire umbrella policy, which included an uninsured motorist option, had to respond before the passenger's Royal Insurance O.E.F. 44 family protection endorsement.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding that the umbrella policy was not a motor vehicle liability policy under the Insurance Act and was explicitly excess insurance.

Therefore, the passenger's O.E.F. 44 endorsement had to be exhausted before recourse could be made to the umbrella policy.

The plaintiff, a senior communications consultant, was wrongfully dismissed after one year of employment.

A jury awarded her 12 months' notice (including a three-month Wallace extension for bad faith) and $75,000 in punitive damages.

The employer appealed.

The Court of Appeal upheld the 12-month notice period, finding the employer's conduct in maintaining cause allegations and withholding commissions justified the Wallace extension.

However, the court set aside the punitive damages award, finding no independent actionable wrong and that the generous compensatory award was sufficient to deter the employer's conduct.

The court also ordered a new trial on the limited issue of whether the plaintiff's compensation included revenues from the Montreal office, as the trial judge had unfairly precluded the employer from leading evidence on this point.

The moving parties sought to review an order of a single judge of the Court of Appeal refusing a stay of an order enforcing Letters Rogatory from a California court.

They argued the original Letters Rogatory were null and void, depriving the court of jurisdiction.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the motion, finding no serious issue to be tried.

The court held that under s. 60 of the Evidence Act, jurisdiction is established when it is made to appear that a foreign court has duly authorized a request, and the moving parties failed to challenge the validity of the request at the original hearing.