Marc Rosenberg

The appellant appealed a treatment order but was found fit to stand trial shortly after the order was made.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal as moot, declining to exercise its discretion to hear the case because the broader issues of principle regarding treatment orders were already under reserve in another case, and the remaining issues were fact-specific.

The appellant appealed a Disposition Order of the Ontario Review Board.

With the advice of counsel, the appellant chose to proceed with a review of that disposition instead.

Consequently, the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal as moot.

The appellant appealed a conviction for sexual abuse, arguing the trial judge reversed the burden of proof, set up a false dichotomy, and gave unreasonable weight to demeanour evidence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the trial judge correctly applied the W.(D.) principles and properly considered demeanour as only one of many factors in assessing credibility.

The young person appealed their conviction, arguing the trial judge failed to consider self-defence under s. 34(1) of the Criminal Code.

The Crown conceded the appellant relied on s. 34(1), but the trial judge only addressed s. 34(2).

The Court of Appeal found an air of reality to the s. 34(1) defence, noting the trial judge made no finding that the appellant intended to cause grievous bodily harm and the findings did not establish disproportionate force.

The appeal was allowed, the conviction set aside, and a new trial ordered.

The young person appealed their conviction and sentence for robbery.

The appellant argued the trial judge misapprehended circumstantial evidence regarding identification and erred in principle during sentencing by departing from a probation officer's recommendation.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding the trial judge correctly assessed the circumstantial evidence matching the appellant's clothing and appearance to the perpetrators.

The sentence appeal was also dismissed, as the trial judge made no error in principle and was entitled to weigh the appellant's poor behaviour in pre-trial custody.

The respondents challenged the constitutionality of three Criminal Code provisions relating to prostitution: operating a common bawdy-house, living on the avails of prostitution, and communicating for the purpose of prostitution.

The application judge struck down all three provisions as violating section 7 of the Charter.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal upheld the striking down of the bawdy-house provision (suspended for 12 months) and read in an exploitation requirement to the living on the avails provision.

However, the Court of Appeal reversed the application judge's decision on the communicating provision, finding it did not violate the principles of fundamental justice and was a justified limit on freedom of expression, binding the lower court to the Supreme Court's previous decision in the Prostitution Reference.

The applicant sought judicial review of a Surrender Order made by the Minister of Justice, arguing that outstanding charges in Macedonia affected the reasonableness of the decision to extradite him to the United States.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the application, holding that the outstanding charges in Macedonia were for entirely different offences and did not affect the reasonableness of the decision to extradite.

The appellant appealed his robbery conviction, arguing that the eyewitness description varied from his appearance.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the trial judge adequately explained why he discounted the discrepancies and reasonably relied on the remarkable coincidence that the appellant was found with the co-perpetrator minutes after the robbery wearing a shirt matching the eyewitness description.

The appellant appealed his conviction for sexual assault.

The trial judge had acquitted the appellant of the most serious offences due to grave doubts about the complainant's credibility, but convicted him of sexual assault based entirely on a statement made to a police officer.

The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge erred by focusing solely on whether the statement was made, without determining whether it was truthful, especially since the complainant's evidence did not correspond to the act described in the statement.

The appeal was allowed, the conviction set aside, and a new trial ordered.

The appellant appealed his sentence for setting fire to a police cruiser during the G20 riots.

The Court of Appeal upheld the custodial sentence, finding that general deterrence and denunciation were paramount and the trial judge adequately considered the appellant's personal circumstances.

However, the Court struck out the restitution order because the trial judge failed to inquire into the appellant's ability to pay, noting his addiction and sporadic employment.

The appellant appealed his conviction, arguing that his rights under ss. 9 and 10 of the Charter were violated during a police encounter in a parking lot.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, agreeing with the trial judge that no detention occurred until the formal arrest, as the initial interaction was preliminary and exploratory.

The court also upheld the finding that there were reasonable grounds for the arrest, making the subsequent search lawful as an incident to arrest.

The Crown appealed the sentence imposed on the respondent, arguing it was manifestly inadequate given the nature of the offences and the respondent's record for violence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that while the sentence was extremely lenient, the trial judge had the benefit of a compelling Gladue report and was entitled to give considerable weight to restorative justice principles.

The appellant farmer appealed a trial judgment awarding damages to the respondent grain elevator for breach of several agricultural futures contracts.

The appellant argued that the parties had a single overall business arrangement, that they had mutually agreed to terminate all dealings, and that the respondent failed to mitigate its damages after the appellant's anticipatory repudiation.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the contracts were independent, no termination agreement existed, and the respondent acted reasonably by waiting until the contractual delivery dates to calculate its losses in accordance with the contracts' valuation provisions.

The plaintiff employer sued its former president for breach of a non-competition covenant and breach of fiduciary duty after he successfully bid against the employer on a public municipal tender.

The trial judge used blue-pencil severance to cure an ambiguous and unreasonable temporal restriction in the non-competition covenant and found the employee liable.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal held that blue-pencil severance was unavailable because the severed words were not trivial and there was no evidence the parties would have unquestionably agreed to the contract without them.

The Court also found no breach of fiduciary duty, as the employee did not use confidential information or compete unfairly.

The employee's cross-appeal was allowed and the action dismissed.

The Crown appealed a sentence imposed following guilty pleas to incest, sexual assault, sexual interference, making and possessing child pornography, and a firearms storage offence arising from prolonged sexual abuse of the offender's child.

The main issue was whether the sentencing judge erred by refusing to view a disc containing child pornography and recordings of the abuse, and whether the resulting six-year global sentence was unfit.

The majority held that a sentencing judge may exclude otherwise relevant evidence where its prejudicial effect outweighs its probative value and found no reversible error in the refusal to view the disc in the unusual circumstances.

The majority further held that, although lenient, the six-year global sentence was not clearly inadequate and dismissed the Crown appeal; a dissenting judge would have increased the sentence to nine years.

The appellant appealed his convictions and sentences for various drug and property offences.

The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge erred in her treatment of a witness's preliminary inquiry evidence and failed to properly apply the W. (D.) principles to the exculpatory defence evidence.

As a result, the convictions for possession for the purpose of trafficking were substituted with simple possession.

The court also quashed convictions for simple possession of certain drugs where no such offence exists, quashed a property conviction as unreasonable, and quashed a money laundering conviction due to misdirection and lack of evidence.

Sentences on the remaining counts were reduced to time served.

The appellants purchased restaurant equipment and leased premises from the respondents.

After a dispute over insurance, the appellants began removing equipment but were allegedly locked out.

The respondents subsequently leased and sold the premises along with the remaining equipment.

The trial judge dismissed the appellants' action for conversion, finding they had abandoned the equipment.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal found the trial judge erred by failing to consider evidence showing the appellants' ongoing intention to claim possession and by assuming the equipment had no market value.

The appeal was allowed, and the respondents were found liable for conversion.

Due to unsatisfactory valuation evidence, nominal damages of $10,000 were awarded.

The appellant was convicted of impaired driving after being stopped at a border crossing by border services officers (BSOs).

The BSOs noticed signs of impairment and directed the appellant to exit his vehicle, at which point they made further observations of his insobriety and arrested him.

The appellant appealed, arguing that designated BSOs lack the authority to gather evidence of insobriety and that the direction to exit the vehicle constituted an illegal, compelled sobriety test.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that designated BSOs possess the ancillary powers necessary to take reasonable steps to investigate suspected impaired driving, and that the observations made upon the appellant exiting the vehicle were not conscriptive evidence.

The appellant parents appealed a decision making their two children Crown wards without access.

The children had been in the care of the Children's Aid Society since 2007 due to neglect and a volatile home environment involving domestic violence.

The Court of Appeal found no error in the trial judge's conclusion that the parents could not provide a safe, stable plan and that a supervision order would not adequately protect the children.

The appeal of the Crown wardship order was dismissed.

The requester sought access to documents relating to advice given to the Minister of Finance regarding the effective date of amendments to the Corporations Tax Act.

The adjudicator ordered disclosure, finding that the 'advice or recommendations' exemption under s. 13(1) of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act did not apply because the documents did not suggest a single course of action and there was no proof they were communicated to the final decision-maker.

The Divisional Court upheld this decision.

The Court of Appeal allowed the Minister's appeal, holding that the adjudicator's interpretation of s. 13(1) was unreasonable as it failed to protect the deliberative process and the range of options presented to a decision-maker.