Lisa Corrente

The appellant appealed a decision of the Licence Appeal Tribunal (LAT) upholding the Director's proposal to refuse to renew its residential care licence.

The LAT had excluded the appellant's proposed expert evidence regarding fire safety and the standard of care for treatment foster homes, citing efficiency and lack of necessity.

The Divisional Court found that the excluded evidence was central to the case and clearly relevant, and that its exclusion amounted to a palpable and overriding error that prejudiced the appellant's ability to make full answer and defence.

The appeal was allowed, the LAT's decision was set aside, and the matter was remitted for a new hearing before a different panel.

The appellant was largely successful in having his most serious professional misconduct convictions set aside on appeal, but unsuccessful on his main ground of reasonable apprehension of bias, which consumed 90% of the appeal's time.

The appellant sought costs of $132,868.19.

Applying the principles from Boucher, the Divisional Court awarded the appellant reduced costs fixed at $15,000 on a partial indemnity scale to reflect the divided success.

The appellant dentist appealed a decision of the Discipline Committee finding him guilty of professional misconduct regarding his treatment of temporomandibular joint disorders.

He argued that a committee member's prior involvement with a Quality Assurance Committee created a reasonable apprehension of bias, and that the committee erred in refusing to qualify his proposed expert witness.

The Divisional Court dismissed the bias claim but found the committee erred in refusing to qualify the expert witness.

The findings of misconduct that depended on expert testimony were quashed, and the penalty and costs were set aside and remitted to a newly constituted panel.

The applicant, which operates both a nursing home and a retirement home, sought judicial review of a Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal decision.

The Tribunal had ruled that because the applicant held a nursing home license, its entire operation, including the private retirement home, was a 'public sector employer' subject to the proxy method of comparison under the Pay Equity Act.

The Divisional Court quashed the Tribunal's decision, finding that a literal interpretation of the statute led to absurd and unfair results, such as forcing a private, unfunded retirement home to use a public sector pay equity method simply because of common ownership with a nursing home.

The Court held that the definition must be read to apply only to the extent of the nursing home operations.

The applicants sought judicial review of a decision by the Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services refusing to consent to the abolition of the municipal police force unless the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) agreed to binding arbitration regarding the hiring of a specific officer.

The Divisional Court allowed the application, finding that the Commission's jurisdiction under section 40(3) of the Police Services Act is limited to ordering arbitration between a police board and a member regarding severance pay.

The Commission had no statutory authority to order the OPP to submit to arbitration regarding an officer's suitability for employment.

The condition was set aside and the Commission was directed to consent to the termination.