Sabih Ottawa

The plaintiff sought to certify a class action against Intuit Canada ULC and Intuit Inc., alleging that the defendants engaged in misleading advertising and 'drip pricing' by promoting their tax filing software as 'free' or 'free for simple tax returns', only to require users to pay to complete their filings after investing time in the software.

The court granted certification, finding that the pleadings disclosed valid causes of action under provincial consumer protection legislation, the Competition Act, and unjust enrichment.

The court approved the class definition, certified common issues relating to liability and aggregate damages (excluding punitive damages), and found that a class proceeding was the preferable procedure.

The plaintiffs invested $17.8 million with a mortgage broker, who fraudulently used the funds to repay an unauthorized overdraft at TD Bank caused by a cheque kiting scheme.

The plaintiffs sued TD Bank for negligence, knowing receipt, conversion, and unjust enrichment.

The court dismissed the negligence claim, finding TD Bank lacked actual knowledge of the fraud and thus owed no duty of care.

However, the court found TD Bank liable for knowing receipt, conversion, and unjust enrichment, as the bank had constructive knowledge of the fraud due to multiple red flags requiring enhanced due diligence, and the tort of conversion was held to apply to funds on deposit.

TD Bank was ordered to pay damages of over $16.3 million.

The defendants in a proposed class action regarding allegedly deceptive advertising of tax software brought a motion to strike a paragraph in the statement of claim and portions of the certification record.

The impugned materials referenced regulatory and civil litigation settlements in the United States concerning similar advertising by the parent company.

The court granted the motion, finding that the U.S. settlement was not sufficiently relevant to the Canadian claims and that admitting the foreign litigation evidence would needlessly expand the certification inquiry.

The plaintiffs successfully obtained an anti-suit injunction to halt an arbitration commenced by the defendants in Hong Kong, which was found to be an abusive collateral attack on prior Ontario rulings.

The plaintiffs sought costs on a substantial indemnity basis.

The court awarded the plaintiffs $261,900 in substantial indemnity costs, emphasizing the defendants' vexatious and oppressive tactics in pursuing the foreign arbitration and threatening the representative plaintiffs with personal financial jeopardy.

The plaintiffs sought to certify a class action against the Toronto Police Services Board and several Chiefs of Police regarding the practice of 'carding' or street checks.

The plaintiffs alleged that the practice disproportionately targeted Black and Indigenous individuals, violating their Charter rights and constituting systemic negligence and intrusion upon seclusion.

The court found that the plaintiffs met all the criteria for certification under section 5(1) of the Class Proceedings Act, 1992, including establishing a valid cause of action, an identifiable class, common issues, preferable procedure, and suitable representative plaintiffs.

The motion for certification was granted.

Three provincial appellants challenged the constitutionality of the federal Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, which established minimum national standards of greenhouse gas price stringency operating as a backstop to provincial pricing systems.

The courts below were divided, with the Saskatchewan and Ontario Courts of Appeal upholding the Act while the Alberta Court of Appeal struck it down.

A 6-3 majority of the Supreme Court held that the Act's pith and substance is the establishment of minimum national standards of greenhouse gas price stringency to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and that this matter falls within Parliament's jurisdiction under the national concern branch of the peace, order, and good government power.

The majority further held that the fuel and excess emissions charges are constitutionally valid regulatory charges rather than taxes.

The appeals by the Attorneys General of Saskatchewan and Ontario were dismissed and the appeal by the Attorney General of British Columbia was allowed, with Côté J. dissenting in part and Brown and Rowe JJ. fully dissenting.

The appellant challenged rectification orders that had rewritten corporate resolutions to avoid unintended tax consequences from unwinding a financing structure.

The Court held that rectification requires an antecedent agreement with definite and ascertainable terms that was incorrectly recorded in the instrument.

A generalized objective of tax neutrality, without a specific prior agreement on the term to be corrected, was insufficient.

Applying ordinary rectification principles in the tax context, the majority rejected retroactive correction of an agreement that had been accurately recorded but produced an unwelcome result.

The appeal was allowed, with a dissent that would have upheld rectification for implementation error.