Kathryn N.M. van Rensburg

An appeal from a committal order for extradition to the United States.

The appellant challenged the committal judge's dismissal of a Charter application seeking to exclude evidence obtained from searches of electronic devices.

The searches were authorized by warrants based on information from an iPhone examined and seized during U.S. Customs preclearance at Pearson Airport.

The Court of Appeal found that the examination of the iPhone violated section 8 of the Charter because it occurred after the appellant was detained.

The court allowed the appeal and remitted the matter for a new extradition hearing to determine whether the evidence should be excluded under section 24(2) of the Charter and whether sufficient evidence remains for committal.

Appeal from a summary judgment enforcing personal guarantees against the appellants in connection with an equipment lease agreement.

The appellants, who signed personal guarantees relating to Altavision Plus Inc.'s obligations under a 2009 equipment lease with Maxium Financial Services Inc., challenged the motion judge's decision on four grounds: (1) misinterpretation of the governing law clause; (2) failure to recognize a defence based on Maxium's failure to claim insurance coverage; (3) loss of standing due to assignment of receivables to Sun Life; and (4) unreasonableness of the costs award.

The Court of Appeal dismissed all grounds of appeal and upheld the summary judgment.

The appellant, a heavy electricity user, challenged the constitutionality of the Global Adjustment component of Ontario's electricity pricing formula, which funds the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) program.

The appellant argued that the FIT program component was a colourable attempt to disguise a tax as a regulatory charge, designed to provide economic stimulus and subsidies to preferred communities (aboriginal peoples, co-operatives, and municipalities) rather than to regulate electricity generation.

The motion judge struck the applications, finding the Global Adjustment was a valid regulatory charge within a closed system.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding the appellant's colourability challenge was sufficiently plausible that the applications should not have been dismissed on a pleadings motion and should proceed to a full hearing on the merits.

The appellant appealed a summary judgment decision awarding damages for breach of an unconditional agreement of purchase and sale.

The appellant claimed the agreement was frustrated by a government policy announcement that caused real estate prices to drop 20-30 percent, preventing her from obtaining financing and selling her own home.

The Court of Appeal upheld the lower court's decision, finding that frustration did not apply because the appellant deliberately chose not to include financing or sale conditions in her offer to make it more attractive to the vendor.

The court held that the policy announcement did not constitute a "radical change" in the appellant's obligations and that the appellant knowingly assumed the risk of being unable to obtain financing.

An appeal under Part XX.1 of the Criminal Code against the Ontario Review Board's disposition dated February 4, 2019, ordering continued detention in the General Forensic Unit at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

The appellant sought an absolute discharge or, alternatively, an independent assessment of his treatment plan and risk with an early hearing date.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the Board's determination that the appellant continues to meet the threshold for significant threat was amply justified.

However, the court expressed concern that no concrete plan for community reintegration had been established as previously directed.

The appellant appealed his conviction for sexual assault arising from an incident on January 31, 2016, where he met the complainant in a bar and took her to his parents' apartment.

The complainant testified that after consensual kissing, she expressed that she did not want to have sex, but the appellant proceeded with non-consensual vaginal intercourse and anal contact.

The appellant testified that the intercourse was consensual and denied anal contact.

The trial judge convicted the appellant based on acceptance of the complainant's credibility and rejection of the appellant's evidence.

The appellant raised three grounds of appeal: insufficiency of reasons, improper use of prior consistent statements, and uneven scrutiny of evidence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed all grounds and upheld the conviction.

The appellants sought to appeal an order quashing their motion to set aside a Mareva injunction, certificates of pending litigation, and Norwich orders.

The Court of Appeal determined that the quashed order was interlocutory in nature, not final, as it did not finally determine the real matter in dispute—whether fraud was perpetrated—but rather addressed collateral issues pending trial.

The court held that interlocutory orders must be appealed with leave to the Divisional Court pursuant to section 19(1)(b) of the Courts of Justice Act, not directly to the Court of Appeal.

The motion to quash the appeal was granted without prejudice to the appellants' right to seek leave to appeal to the Divisional Court.

A law firm (Robins Appleby LLP) obtained a fee judgment against its former client (Todd Family Holdings Inc.) for unpaid legal fees after successfully prosecuting a lawsuit that resulted in a $2.2 million judgment and approximately $1 million in costs.

The client subsequently retained new counsel (GMS Law Professional Corporation) on a contingency fee basis to pursue an appeal of the original judgment.

When the new counsel obtained a costs award, Robins issued garnishment notices to intercept the funds.

The client and new counsel sought a charging order and priority over Robins' charging order, and sought to vacate the garnishment notices.

The motion judge denied all relief.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal for Ontario upheld the motion judge's decision, finding that the client failed to establish the prerequisite for a charging order (inability or unwillingness to pay fees) and that absent exceptional circumstances, a former lawyer may enforce a fee judgment without violating the duty of loyalty owed to a former client.

The appellant appealed his conviction for possession for the purposes of trafficking cocaine and failure to comply with conditions of a recognizance.

The appellant was stopped for a non-functional licence plate light, during which the officer detected the odour of burnt marijuana.

Following the discovery of a small amount of marijuana in a grinder, the appellant was arrested.

A subsequent search of the vehicle revealed 172 grams of cocaine hidden under the hood.

The appellant challenged the legality of the arrest and search on Charter grounds, arguing violations of sections 8 and 10 rights.

The trial judge rejected these arguments and convicted the appellant based on circumstantial evidence of knowledge and control.

The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction, finding the officer's actions reasonable and the search lawful as incident to arrest.

An appeal from a sentence imposed by the Ontario Court of Justice.

The Court of Appeal issued an addendum clarifying that the appellant was to be freed on November 4, 2019, and that the sentences imposed were concurrent and therefore complete as ordered.

The appellant appealed his conviction for sexual assault and his sentence.

The conviction was entered in November 2013 and the sentence of 18 months' custody (after credit of six months) followed by three years' probation was imposed in July 2014.

The appellant raised two grounds of appeal: first, that the trial judge reversed the onus of proof by requiring him to disprove the complainant's account; and second, that the trial judge erred in admitting his police statement.

The Court of Appeal found no error in the trial judge's analysis and dismissed both the conviction appeal and the sentence appeal, which had become moot as the sentence had been served.

The appellant appealed a sentence imposed by the Superior Court of Justice.

The appeal was abandoned and dismissed by the Court of Appeal for Ontario.

The appellant appealed a sentence imposed by the Ontario Court of Justice.

The parties had agreed to a joint submission intended to result in a penitentiary sentence to allow the appellant access to treatment programs.

However, the parties miscalculated, resulting in a sentence that was practically too long.

The appellant argued for 150 days while the Crown acknowledged that four to six months would have been appropriate.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and substituted a sentence of 150 days for the original 307-day sentence.

The appellant appealed a conviction and sentence entered by the Ontario Court of Justice.

The appeal was dismissed as abandoned after the appellant failed to attend the hearing despite being advised that the Crown would seek dismissal for non-attendance.

The appellant appealed his sentence of 10 years imposed for a spree of robberies committed over a two-week period.

Duty counsel argued that the sentencing judge erred by relying on an incorrect prior sentence from 2006, claiming the appellant had received six and a half years when he actually received five years and eleven months.

The court found the error immaterial as the sentencing judge had considered numerous factors and reduced a proposed 12-year sentence to 10 years based on rehabilitative efforts.

The sentence was upheld as fit and justified.

The appellant appealed his conviction and sentence from the Superior Court of Justice.

The Crown acknowledged, after review of trial transcripts and an independent interpreter's assessment of audio recordings, that there were numerous and significant errors in the interpretation of the appellant's evidence during trial.

The appeal against conviction was allowed with the Crown's consent.

The conviction was set aside and a new trial was ordered.

The appellant appealed a motion judge's order dismissing her action against the respondents under Rule 21.01(1)(b) of the Rules of Civil Procedure without leave to amend.

The appellant alleged that the respondents breached a settlement agreement by: (1) appealing her WSIB benefits claim in violation of a release clause, and (2) breaching confidentiality provisions by disclosing settlement agreement information in an affidavit filed in a class proceeding.

The motion judge struck both claims and dismissed the action against the individual respondent.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding it was not plain and obvious that the claims could not succeed, and granted leave to amend the claim against the individual respondent.

The appellant appealed from an order of the Superior Court of Justice dismissing his application against his daughters regarding the transfer of a mortgage from a family company to a family trust.

The Court of Appeal determined that it lacked jurisdiction to hear the appeal because the order arose from an oppression application under the Business Corporations Act, for which the proper appellate route is to the Divisional Court, not the Court of Appeal.

The court rejected the appellant's arguments that section 6(2) of the Courts of Justice Act or Rule 6.01(1) of the Rules of Civil Procedure permitted the Court of Appeal to hear the appeal, and declined to reconstitute itself as the Divisional Court.

The appeal was transferred to the Divisional Court.

The respondent was sexually abused by a priest while a student at a school run by the appellants.

The trial judge and jury found the appellants vicariously liable.

The jury awarded $350,000 in general damages, $75,000 in aggravated damages, $56,400 in future treatment costs, $1,588,781 for past and future income loss, and $500,000 in punitive damages.

The appellants appealed on three grounds: the jury instruction on burden of proof for past income loss was erroneous, the punitive damages award was excessive, and prejudgment interest should not have been set at 5 per cent.

The Court of Appeal upheld the jury instruction and punitive damages award but found the trial judge erred in setting prejudgment interest at 5 per cent instead of 1.3 per cent.

The appellant appealed the motion judge's order striking his statement of claim and dismissing his action against his daughters and their company.

The appellant sought to challenge the validity of a family trust established in connection with an estate freeze in 2007.

The motion judge had struck the claim on the basis of res judicata, collateral attack, and abuse of process, finding that the appellant could have raised the validity issue in the daughters' prior oppression application but failed to do so.

The Court of Appeal upheld the motion judge's decision, finding that the doctrine of abuse of process alone warranted striking the claim, as allowing the action to proceed would constitute an attempt to relitigate a matter already decided.