Robert Cosman

The applicant physician brought an appeal and an application for judicial review challenging an interlocutory decision of the Discipline Committee of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.

The Committee had ruled it had jurisdiction to hear allegations regarding patients not specifically named in the Notice of Hearing.

The Divisional Court quashed the application for judicial review for prematurity, finding no exceptional circumstances to intervene in the ongoing disciplinary process, as the Committee reasonably concluded it had jurisdiction.

The Court also quashed the appeal, holding that it lacked jurisdiction under the Health Professions Procedural Code to hear an appeal from an interlocutory decision.

The appellants, an optician and his associated companies, appealed a finding of contempt and a $1 million fine for flagrantly breaching a court order.

The underlying order prohibited them from prescribing and dispensing corrective lenses without a prescription from an optometrist or physician.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the notice of application was adequate, the self-represented appellant received a fair hearing, and the consolidated hearing on liability and penalty did not vitiate the contempt finding.

The $1 million fine was upheld due to the appellants' deliberate and protracted disobedience of the court order.