Karen Weiler

The appellant challenged the dismissal of an action advancing further employment-related claims against her former employer notwithstanding an earlier settlement and extensive prior litigation.

The Court of Appeal held that the action was properly dismissed on multiple independent grounds, including limitation period expiry, failure to disclose a reasonable cause of action, abuse of process, and exclusive labour-relations jurisdiction.

The court further held that the proceeding was an attempt to re-litigate issues that were or ought to have been raised in earlier proceedings and applied issue estoppel under Danyluk.

The appeal was dismissed with modest costs to the respondent.

The appellant appealed his conviction for possession of a handgun, arguing that the trial judge erred in her correcting instruction to the jury.

During closing submissions, defence counsel improperly gave evidence by stating that if the appellant had touched the gun, his fingerprints would definitely be on it.

The trial judge corrected this by instructing the jury that there was no evidence on how often fingerprints are left on firearms, but went further to state that the jury could not reason that the absence of prints meant the appellant could not have handled the gun.

The Court of Appeal held that this final sentence improperly deprived the appellant of the ability to argue that the lack of fingerprint evidence raised a reasonable doubt.

The appeal was allowed and a new trial was ordered.