Abuse of process

The appellants appealed an order striking out their statement of claim without leave to amend.

The claim alleged conspiracy to injure and abuse of process by the police and government defendants in relation to an investigation targeting the adult entertainment industry.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding the motion judge took an overly technical approach and that the material facts pleaded were reasonably capable of supporting the causes of action.

The appellants appealed the dismissal of their motion to strike the respondent's statement of claim on the basis of res judicata, issue estoppel, and abuse of process.

The motion judge had found that res judicata and issue estoppel would apply but for the appellants' failure to disclose material evidence in a previous action.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, noting that on a motion to strike at the pleading stage, the facts pleaded by the respondent must be accepted as true.

The appellant appealed the dismissal of its Superior Court action, which the motion judge had found to be an abuse of process for raising the same issues as an earlier Small Claims Court action.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding that despite the appellant's contradictory affidavits, the legal issues in the two actions were not identical or substantially the same.

However, due to the appellant's inaccurate affidavit, costs of the appeal and the motion were awarded to the respondent.

The respondent municipality brought a motion to quash the appellant's second appeal as an abuse of process.

The appellant brought a responding motion to set aside the Registrar's order dismissing its first appeal for delay.

The Court of Appeal granted the motion to quash the second appeal, finding it was an abuse of process because the first appeal on the merits had already been dismissed for delay.

However, the Court exercised its discretion to set aside the Registrar's order dismissing the first appeal, accepting the delay in settling the formal judgment as an adequate explanation, subject to strict conditions regarding representation, filing an amended notice of appeal, and ordering transcripts.

The plaintiff brought a proposed class action in Ontario against McDonald's and Simon Marketing Inc. alleging wrongdoing in relation to promotional contests.

The defendants moved to dismiss or stay the action on the basis that the claims had been finally disposed of in an Illinois class action settlement.

The motion judge refused to stay or dismiss the action, finding that the notice given to the Canadian members of the plaintiff class in the Illinois action was so inadequate as to violate the rules of natural justice.

The defendants appealed.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that before enforcing a foreign class action judgment against Ontario residents, the court must ensure the foreign court had a proper basis for jurisdiction and that the interests of Ontario residents were adequately protected.

The Court found no basis to interfere with the motion judge's finding that the notice given to the non-resident class members was inadequate, and therefore the Ontario courts should not recognize and enforce the Illinois judgment against the plaintiff and the non-attorning Canadian class members.

The Crown appealed an order upholding a summary conviction court's decision to proceed with an application for costs after charges against the respondent were withdrawn.

Relying on the companion appeal of R. v. Fach, the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, quashed the lower court's decision, and prohibited the summary conviction court from proceeding with the costs application.

The Court also rejected the respondent's allegations of abuse of process by the Crown in withdrawing the charges.

The appellant appealed an order dismissing her action on the grounds that her re-amended statement of claim was verbose, pleaded evidence, attempted to re-litigate matters finally disposed of, and was an abuse of process.

The appellant also brought a preliminary motion to strike the respondents' affidavits because they were sworn by associates in the same law firms as counsel.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the preliminary motion, finding the affidavits dealt with facts already on the record.

The Court also dismissed the appeal, agreeing with the motion judge that the underlying basis for the appellant's claims—the trustee's right to proceed with the sale of the matrimonial home after the husband's discharge from bankruptcy—had been conclusively determined in earlier proceedings.

The appellants were convicted of second degree murder for stabbing a plainclothes police officer to steal his vehicle.

They appealed their convictions, arguing that the Crown's failure to disclose that two other surveillance officers were drinking outside the jurisdiction during the incident violated their right to full disclosure and constituted an abuse of process.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeals, finding the undisclosed information would not have affected the trial's fairness or the credibility of the responding officer.

The Court also dismissed the sentence appeals, upholding parole ineligibility periods of 16 and 18 years due to the need to denounce the murder of an on-duty police officer and the appellants' violent criminal records.

The Crown appealed a trial judge's decision to stay criminal charges against the respondent based on abuse of process and section 7 Charter breaches due to disclosure failings.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the trial judge's characterization of the prosecution's disclosure approach as disorganized, haphazard, and indifferent was supported by the evidence, and the decision to order a stay was not clearly wrong.

The appellant was convicted of historical sexual offences against his younger sister, younger brother, and a childhood friend, receiving a total sentence of five years.

On appeal, he argued that proceeding with the charges 15 years after an initial police decision not to charge was an abuse of process, and challenged evidentiary rulings including the admission of similar fact evidence and the exclusion of s. 276 evidence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding no abuse of process and upholding the trial judge's evidentiary rulings.

However, the sentence appeal was allowed; the court found the trial judge erred by not treating the appellant's early admissions as mitigating and by failing to consider his youth at the time of the offences.

The total sentence was reduced to three and a half years, and a s. 161 prohibition order was deleted.

The appellant sued multiple defendants for malicious prosecution, defamation, and other claims arising from a child sexual abuse investigation that resulted in criminal charges which were later stayed.

After his civil action was dismissed at trial, he appealed, primarily arguing ineffective assistance of counsel.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that the ineffective assistance claim was an abuse of process because the appellant had already sued his trial counsel for negligence and settled that action.

The court also rejected arguments that the trial judge should have ordered a mistrial and that the trial judge erred in dismissing the defamation claim against the child's grandmother.

The appellant appealed his third conviction for sexual assault, arguing the trial judge erred in assessing defence evidence.

The Court of Appeal found the trial judge improperly discounted defence witnesses' testimony because they had to reconstruct events years later, holding the defence to an impossible standard.

Given that this would be the appellant's fourth trial for an incident that occurred 13 years prior, the Court concluded that proceeding further would violate the community's sense of fair play.

The appeal was allowed, the conviction set aside, and a stay of proceedings entered.

The appellant appealed an order dismissing his action as an abuse of process.

The motions judge had concluded that commencing a new action against individual defendants after the court refused to amend the claim to name them in a prior action constituted an abuse of process.

The Court of Appeal found this was an error in principle, as the prior decision was purely procedural and did not deal with the merits of the claim.

The appeal was allowed and the action was permitted to proceed.

The appellant appealed an order dismissing her claim.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that permitting the claim to proceed would be an abuse of process because the appellant had already failed to obtain a remedy through her employer's complaint and grievance procedures.

The motion judge correctly applied Rule 25.

The appellants, two trusts and their trustee, appealed a bankruptcy judge's decision dismissing their appeal from a Registrar's decision.

The Registrar had confirmed the trustee in bankruptcy's disallowance of the trusts' proofs of claims.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, agreeing with the bankruptcy judge that there was no evidence the cheques deposited into a numbered company controlled by the bankrupt were intended as loans.

Costs were awarded against the trusts and their trustee personally on a joint and several basis.

The prosecution appealed the dismissal of its application for prohibition and certiorari to halt a securities prosecution.

The prosecution alleged the trial judge lost jurisdiction by interfering with its case presentation, failing to rule on evidence admissibility, and failing to restrain uncivil attacks by defence counsel.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that the trial judge has inherent trial management power to direct the order of evidence and defer evidentiary rulings.

While defence counsel's conduct was uncivil and improper, the trial judge's response did not deprive him of jurisdiction or prevent a fair trial.

The Crown appealed a trial judge's order staying the respondent's second-degree murder trial for abuse of process and unreasonable delay under s. 11(b) of the Charter.

The trial judge had found over 150 Charter breaches by police and Crown counsel.

On appeal, the respondent conceded the trial judge's findings were unsupportable but argued the stay should be upheld because her trial counsel's incompetence caused the delay.

The Court of Appeal allowed the Crown's appeal, finding no evidence the respondent was unaware of her counsel's strategy, and set aside the stay of proceedings and costs order, directing a new trial.

The appellants appealed the dismissal of their application dated February 10, 2003.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the motion judge correctly dismissed the application because it sought the exact same relief as prior applications disposed of by another judge, and all issues were or could have been raised in those prior proceedings.

The appellant appealed his conviction and sentence, arguing that his s. 7 Charter rights were breached due to missing initial disclosure statements from complainants and the late disclosure of the police file after the jury's guilty verdict.

The Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge's findings that the missing and late-disclosed materials were of marginal relevance and did not impact the right to a fair trial.

The appellant also argued that a delay in hearing his appeal, caused by issues obtaining transcripts, breached his Charter rights.

The Court dismissed this argument, finding no prejudice or abuse of process.

The appeal against conviction and sentence was dismissed.

The appellant appealed an order allowing the respondents to proceed to trial on all claims after a default judgment was set aside.

At the initial trial, the judge dismissed the respondents' claims for interference with contractual and economic relations but granted an injunction and damages for false and misleading advertising.

The Court of Appeal held that issue estoppel precluded the respondents from relitigating the dismissed interference claims, even though the default judgment against the appellant was set aside.

However, the Court allowed the false and misleading advertising claims to proceed to trial for both an injunction and damages.

The appeal was allowed in part.