Karen M. Weiler

The appellant appealed a decision of the summary conviction appeal court dismissing his appeal from conviction.

The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge was alive to the frailties of the identification evidence and that the combination of identification and confirmatory evidence made the verdict reasonable.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellants appealed a decision declaring their option to purchase a residential parcel of farmland void for contravening section 50 of the Planning Act.

The appellants had sold a 74-acre farm but entered into an option agreement to purchase back the residential portion.

The Court of Appeal held that the option agreement violated section 50(3) because the grantor retained abutting lands not within a registered plan of subdivision.

The Court further found that the agreement lacked an express condition requiring compliance with the Planning Act under section 50(21), and declined to rectify the contract due to a lack of evidence of a prior oral agreement to include such a condition.

The appeal was dismissed.

The plaintiff was seriously injured when struck by a motor vehicle driven by an impaired driver who had been drinking at a university pub.

The jury found the driver 70% liable and the pub 30% liable, awarding general, aggravated, and punitive damages, but dismissing the family members' claims.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal upheld the liability apportionment and general damages, but struck the separate aggravated damages award.

The Court affirmed that punitive damages are available in negligence actions for impaired driving but reduced the quantum from $100,000 to $20,000.

The Court also allowed the family members' appeal, awarding them damages under the Family Law Act.

The appellant father appealed a trial judgment granting joint custody of their two children and ordering him to pay child and spousal support to the respondent mother.

The father argued the trial judge erred by focusing on the mother's rehabilitation from substance abuse rather than the children's best interests, and by improperly admitting expert testimony from the mother's treating physician regarding her parenting ability.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the trial judge properly applied the best interests of the child test, correctly admitted the expert evidence under the Mohan framework, and appropriately considered the statutory factors for spousal support.

The appellant appealed an order dismissing his action against several defendants, including his former partner, her lawyer, and a Quebec civil registry official, as frivolous, vexatious, and an abuse of process.

The action arose following a long history of paternity disputes and the appellant's conviction for criminal harassment.

The Court of Appeal found no basis to interfere with the motion judge's decision, noting that the claims against the registry official and the lawyer lacked foundation, and the action against the former partner was properly deemed an abuse of process.

The appellant, a teacher, was convicted of sexually touching a teenage student.

He appealed his conviction, arguing ineffective assistance of counsel because his trial lawyer failed to cross-examine the complainant on notes taken by a police officer, which he claimed constituted a prior inconsistent statement.

He also argued the trial judge's reasons were inadequate.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the police notes did not constitute a formal statement, the failure to cross-examine did not result in a miscarriage of justice, and the trial judge's reasons were adequate.

The appellant sued the respondents for breach of contract under Rule 76.

The appellant failed to serve his affidavit of documents by the deadline due to document contamination and moved to adjourn the trial.

The respondents moved to strike the statement of claim.

The motion judge struck the claim, finding the appellant failed to raise the issue earlier.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding the motion judge made palpable and overriding errors as the appellant had notified the parties of the contamination well in advance.

The remedy of striking the claim was disproportionate, and the appellant was granted 6 months to serve the affidavit.

The appellant appealed a summary judgment decision.

The motion judge had granted summary judgment by choosing between conflicting expert opinions on the application of the Quebec Automobile Insurance Act to the facts of the case.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, holding that foreign law is a question of fact and the motion judge was not entitled to look beyond the diametrically opposed expert opinions to resolve the issue on a summary judgment motion.

The summary judgment was set aside.

The appellants appealed an order striking out their statement of claim against the federal government for discrimination, defamation, malice, and Charter breaches.

The motion judge found the action was an abuse of process, as it attempted to re-litigate complaints about a British Columbia legal proceeding and lacked any factual basis connecting the complaints to the federal government.

The Court of Appeal agreed, holding that the appellants could not make an indirect attack on the B.C. proceedings by suing the federal government in Ontario.

The appeal was dismissed with no costs.

In a Reference directed by the Minister of Justice concerning the 1959 murder conviction of Steven Truscott, the Crown sought to introduce fresh evidence from a witness, Ms. X. The proposed evidence described a brief, unwanted sexual advance by Truscott in a cornfield approximately a year before the murder.

The Crown argued the evidence was relevant to rebut good character, challenge credibility, support another witness's testimony, and act as similar fact evidence identifying Truscott as the killer.

The Court of Appeal ruled on the admissibility without hearing the testimony viva voce, finding the evidence clearly irrelevant to any material fact in issue.

The Crown's application to tender the evidence was dismissed, and the defence's request for a publication ban on the ruling was denied.

In the context of a Reference regarding his 1959 murder conviction, the applicant sought production of third-party nursing school and psychiatric records of a key Crown witness.

The applicant tendered fresh evidence from two individuals who claimed the witness admitted to lying at trial and sought psychiatric hospitalization to avoid testifying at a 1966 Supreme Court rehearing.

The Court of Appeal applied the O'Connor test and ordered production of the nursing school records, finding they provided independent confirmation of the fresh evidence with minimal prejudice to the witness's privacy.

However, the court refused to order production of the psychiatric records, concluding that the witness's high expectation of privacy outweighed the limited probative value of the one-page discharge form.

The parties agreed that critical and further evidence respecting the best interests of the child needed to be presented, which was not presented before the trial judge.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal on consent and ordered a new trial on the issue of mobility.

The parents appealed an order making their two children permanent wards of the Crown without access.

The trial judge had granted summary judgment against the mother based on a prior agreement to be bound by a parental assessment, effectively delegating the disposition decision and depriving her of a hearing on the merits.

The Court of Appeal found this process fundamentally flawed, as the burden was on the Children's Aid Society to show no triable issue regarding the best interests of the children.

The Court also admitted fresh evidence regarding the mother's mental health progress and the parents' support network.

The appeal was allowed and a new hearing ordered.

The appellant pig farm applied to expand its operations but was denied minor variances from a municipal zoning by-law that enforced minimum distance separation (MDS II) guidelines.

The appellant applied to the Normal Farm Practices Protection Board, which held it had jurisdiction and exempted the appellant from the doubling factor of the MDS II guidelines.

The Divisional Court overturned this, finding the Board lacked jurisdiction over zoning by-laws.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal held that the Board does have jurisdiction to consider zoning by-laws under the Farming and Food Production Protection Act.

However, applying a reasonableness standard of review, the Court found the Board's decision unreasonable because it directly contradicted the mandatory provincial MDS II guidelines, violating section 9 of the Act.

The appeal was dismissed.

The young person appealed his convictions for robbery and using an imitation firearm during a home invasion, as well as his sentence of 16 months secure custody and eight months community supervision.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding the fingerprint evidence compelling.

On the sentence appeal, the Court found the trial judge erred in principle by ignoring the Youth Criminal Justice Act and focusing on general deterrence.

While a custodial sentence was warranted because the home invasion constituted a 'violent offence', the Court varied the sentence to 15 months (six months secure, four months open, five months supervision) due to mitigating factors and confirmed the court's jurisdiction to combine open and secure custody for a single offence.

The respondents sought to expand their hog farming operation and obtained provincial approval for a nutrient management plan, which required a 100-metre setback from a municipal well.

The appellant municipality had passed a zoning by-law prohibiting intensive livestock operations within a larger two-year capture zone to protect groundwater.

The municipality argued the by-law enhanced provincial standards, while the respondents argued the provincial regulation superseded the by-law under s. 61 of the Nutrient Management Act.

The Court of Appeal held that s. 61 displaced the common law 'impossibility of dual compliance' test.

The Court found that both the regulation and the by-law addressed the same subject matter—the regulation of livestock operations and nutrient management—rendering the municipal by-law inoperative.

The appeal was dismissed.

The Crown appealed the accused's acquittal on charges of impaired driving and driving over 80.

The trial judge and summary conviction appeal judge had excluded breathalyzer evidence under s. 24(2) of the Charter, finding that police officers violated the accused's s. 8 rights by walking onto his driveway to investigate him.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, holding that the officers' entry onto the driveway was justified by the implied licence doctrine.

Because the accused did not ask the officers to leave, they were lawfully on the property when they made the breathalyzer demand, meaning no s. 8 violation occurred.

The appellant appealed convictions for sexual exploitation and sexual assault arising from historic allegations by two complainants subject to a publication ban.

The Court of Appeal held that the trial judge erred by failing to instruct the jury on the limited use of prior consistent statements and by failing to caution the jury about the mother's belief in the complainants' truthfulness.

Although the court rejected challenges to the instruction on after-the-fact conduct and to the alleged inconsistency of the verdicts, the combined instructional errors undermined trial fairness.

A new trial was ordered, with the Crown left to decide whether to proceed.

The Crown appealed a trial judgment finding it liable for breach of contract and awarding $2.52 million in compensatory damages plus $400,000 in punitive damages to a software developer.

The trial judge found that the government deliberately undermined the objectives of a portal development agreement by secretly encouraging a subcontractor to develop a competing product, breaching an implied duty of good faith.

The Court of Appeal upheld the findings on liability and compensatory damages, concluding the government's conduct undermined the contract's business efficacy and the parties' reasonable expectations.

However, the Court set aside the punitive damages award, finding it served no rational purpose since the breach of good faith already formed the basis of the compensatory damages.

The developer's cross-appeal for lost market value and lost opportunities was dismissed.

The appellant condominium corporation appealed the dismissal of its application for an order permitting it to enter the respondents' units to carry out mould remediation.

The corporation argued that the respondents' chosen method of remediation was insufficient and created a dangerous condition under s. 117 of the Condominium Act, 1998.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no palpable and overriding error in the application judge's factual findings that the corporation failed to prove a risk of mould spreading to other units.

The Court also held that the deference standard from Dvorchik did not apply because the corporation's remediation requirement was not a formal rule and involved competing statutory rights.