Matthew M. A. Stroh

The plaintiff sought to recover $500,000 from her younger brother, claiming it was an undocumented loan.

The defendant asserted the funds were a gift.

The court found the action was not statute-barred under the Limitations Act, 2002.

The defendant successfully rebutted the presumption of a resulting trust by establishing on a balance of probabilities that the plaintiff intended to gift the funds as an early inheritance to help him purchase a home following his marital separation.

The court found no unjust enrichment as there was a donative intent, and declined to apply the equitable fraud doctrine as the defendant's retention of the gifted funds was not unconscionable.

The action was dismissed.

The appellant, G.T., challenged a Consent and Capacity Board decision confirming the criteria for issuing a Community Treatment Order (CTO) under the Mental Health Act.

The appeal focused on whether there was informed consent by the substitute decision maker (SDM) and whether the Board erred by relying on uncorroborated hearsay.

The court found that the SDM was properly informed and consented to the treatment plan, and that the Board did not make a palpable and overriding error.

The appeal was dismissed.

This costs endorsement followed a motion for enforcement of an arbitration award.

The applicant was successful in enforcing the award but was denied a worldwide Mareva injunction.

The applicant sought substantial indemnity costs, arguing the respondents' conduct during arbitration was reprehensible.

The court, however, awarded partial indemnity costs, finding no reprehensible conduct by the respondents on the motion itself and affirming their right to require the applicant to prove their case.

The respondents were ordered to pay costs jointly and severally.

The appellant appealed the dismissal of his challenge to his involuntary status and incapacity finding by the Consent and Capacity Board, arguing abuse of process due to alleged illegal detention and recertification after initial Board decisions in his favour.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no abuse of process or res judicata, as new evidence of the appellant's deteriorating condition and previously unconsidered criteria justified the subsequent certification process.

The court emphasized the flexibility of the abuse of process concept in administrative proceedings and the importance of considering all circumstances, especially new and significant evidence, when determining capacity and involuntary status under the Mental Health Act.

The appellant, JJ, appealed two decisions of the Consent and Capacity Board (the "Board") that confirmed his involuntary status and incapacity to consent to antipsychotic medication.

JJ argued that the Board erred in its capacity finding and in confirming his involuntary status, and that the repeated certification process constituted an abuse of process and res judicata.

The court applied an appellate standard of review (correctness for law, palpable and overriding error for fact/mixed fact and law).

The court found no palpable and overriding error in the Board's findings regarding JJ's incapacity to appreciate the consequences of his treatment decisions or in confirming his involuntary status under the Mental Health Act's "Box B" criteria.

The court also found no error in the Board's decision not to exercise its discretion to find an abuse of process, noting that the merits of the Box B criteria had not been previously tested and there were intervening events of deterioration.

The appeal was dismissed.

This decision addresses the defendants' requests for damages and full indemnity costs following the dismissal of the plaintiff's defamation actions under anti-SLAPP provisions (s. 137.1 of the Courts of Justice Act).

The court dismissed the damages claim, finding no bad faith or improper purpose by the plaintiff, and that alleged harm was not directly caused by the proceedings.

However, the court awarded full indemnity costs to the defendants, Matthew Bergman ($50,000) and Gregory Swain ($11,690.56), as statutorily presumed.

Hazelton Homes Corporation (Plaintiff) claimed beneficial ownership of two properties registered to Morteza Katebian, who had defaulted on mortgages held by Home Trust Company and Ivan Terziev and Elena Mechtcheriakova (Second Mortgagees).

Following the conversion of applications into an action, the defendants (Katebian, Payam, Home Trust, and Second Mortgagees) moved for security for costs against Hazelton.

The court found good reason to believe Hazelton's claim against Home Trust and the Second Mortgagees was frivolous and vexatious, and that Hazelton, a shell corporation, had insufficient assets.

The motion for security for costs was granted for Home Trust and the Second Mortgagees, with specific amounts ordered to be paid into court or credited from existing holdbacks.

Katebian and Payam's motion for security for costs was adjourned pending their delivery of a Statement of Defence.

The appellant appealed from an order of the Superior Court of Justice dismissing his application against his daughters regarding the transfer of a mortgage from a family company to a family trust.

The Court of Appeal determined that it lacked jurisdiction to hear the appeal because the order arose from an oppression application under the Business Corporations Act, for which the proper appellate route is to the Divisional Court, not the Court of Appeal.

The court rejected the appellant's arguments that section 6(2) of the Courts of Justice Act or Rule 6.01(1) of the Rules of Civil Procedure permitted the Court of Appeal to hear the appeal, and declined to reconstitute itself as the Divisional Court.

The appeal was transferred to the Divisional Court.

The appellant appealed the motion judge's order striking his statement of claim and dismissing his action against his daughters and their company.

The appellant sought to challenge the validity of a family trust established in connection with an estate freeze in 2007.

The motion judge had struck the claim on the basis of res judicata, collateral attack, and abuse of process, finding that the appellant could have raised the validity issue in the daughters' prior oppression application but failed to do so.

The Court of Appeal upheld the motion judge's decision, finding that the doctrine of abuse of process alone warranted striking the claim, as allowing the action to proceed would constitute an attempt to relitigate a matter already decided.

The applicant, Hazelton Homes Corporation, initiated two applications seeking declarations of trust over two properties held by Morteza Katebian, among other relief.

Katebian and other respondents opposed, with Katebian also seeking consolidation and conversion of the applications into an action.

The court consolidated the applications but found significant material facts in dispute, including allegations of criminal activity and conflicting handwriting expert evidence regarding trust agreements.

Consequently, the court ordered the consolidated applications to proceed to trial, converting them into an action, and scheduled a case management conference.

The moving party sought a determination on whether a handwritten note by the deceased constituted a valid holograph codicil.

The deceased had previously executed a will dividing his estate equally among his three children and transferred his cottage to two of them in joint tenancy.

The handwritten note expressed an intention to provide the third child with a cash equivalent from the estate to compensate for her exclusion from the cottage property.

The court found the note demonstrated a deliberate and final testamentary intention and declared it a valid holograph codicil.

The plaintiff sought a worldwide Mareva injunction to freeze assets and, alternatively, an order for interim possession of a jewellery set of identified diamonds.

The court denied the Mareva injunction, finding the plaintiff did not establish a strong prima facie case of fraud against all respondents or a real risk of asset dissipation.

However, the court granted the interim possession order, finding the criteria under Rule 44.01 were met, as the plaintiff demonstrated lawful entitlement to the property and unlawful detention by the respondents.

The jewellery set was ordered to be held by the Toronto Police Service pending criminal matters.

The plaintiff sought leave under s. 138.8 of the Ontario Securities Act to commence an action for secondary market misrepresentation against Pretium Resources Inc. and Robert A. Quartermain.

The plaintiff alleged that the defendants failed to disclose material facts regarding conflicting expert opinions on the validity of a mineral resource estimate for the Brucejack Project, leading to a significant drop in share price.

The court granted leave, finding that the plaintiff established a reasonable possibility of success at trial.

The court determined that the concerns raised by Strathcona Mineral Services, a respected mining consultant, were material facts that a reasonable investor would consider important, despite Pretium's belief that the data was unreliable.

Furthermore, the court found a reasonable possibility that the defendants would not be able to establish the "no reasonable grounds to believe" branch of their reasonable investigation defense under s. 138.4(6) of the OSA.

The Vria Parties (defendants by counterclaim) moved to strike the Fresh as Amended Statement of Defence and Counterclaim against them, arguing it disclosed no reasonable cause of action or was frivolous/vexatious.

The court dismissed the motion, finding it was procedurally barred because the Vria Parties had already filed a defence to the original counterclaim, which contained the same causes of action.

The court also found the motion was not brought promptly, as required for Rule 21.01 motions, especially in a complex, case-managed proceeding.

Martin Gerard brought a proposed class action against Detour Gold Corporation and Gerald Panneton alleging misrepresentations in public disclosures regarding gold production guidance, cash cost projections, and operating covenants.

The parties reached a settlement, and Mr. Gerard sought certification of the action as a class proceeding for settlement purposes and incidental relief.

The court granted the motion, finding all criteria for certification under the Class Proceedings Act, 1992, were satisfied, and approved the proposed common issues for settlement purposes.

An appeal from a Superior Court of Justice decision was settled prior to judgment.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal with no costs awarded to either party.

The plaintiff, LBP Holdings Ltd., brought a motion in a proposed securities class action to add the defendant's underwriters (Cormark Securities Inc. and Dundee Securities Limited) as party defendants following the original defendant's bankruptcy.

The plaintiff sought to assert five claims: primary market statutory, secondary market statutory, common law negligence, common law negligent misrepresentation, and unjust enrichment.

The court granted leave to add the underwriters for the common law negligence and negligent misrepresentation claims, finding them tenable.

However, the primary market statutory claim was time-barred, and the secondary market statutory claim was untenable as underwriters were not considered "experts" under Part XXIII.1 of the Securities Act.

The unjust enrichment claim was also dismissed as legally untenable due to a valid contractual basis for fees and the principle against shareholder derivative actions for corporate wrongs.