Matthew Peter Sammon

The plaintiff brought a motion during trial for leave to withdraw an admission of fact contained in the Agreed Statement of Facts.

The admission was based on a handwritten note produced by the defendant.

Midway through the trial, the defendant produced new documentary evidence, including emails, that contradicted the handwritten note and the admission.

Applying the tripartite test under Rule 51.05 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, the court found that the new evidence raised a triable issue, provided a reasonable explanation for the withdrawal, and would not result in non-compensable prejudice to the defendant.

The motion was granted.

The applicant brought an unopposed motion to be declared a Special Party under the Family Law Rules and to have his sister appointed as his Legal Representative.

The applicant, who resides in a retirement home, was diagnosed with dementia and assessed as having a major neurocognitive disorder.

The court reviewed the medical evidence and the legal test for incapacity, concluding that the applicant was mentally incapable of dealing with the complex family law issues in the proceeding.

The motion was granted, and the applicant's sister was appointed as his Legal Representative.

The applicant brought a motion to enforce a 2019 order regarding the respondent's contributions to their son's university expenses.

The parties presented conflicting affidavit evidence regarding the actual costs, payments made, and the level of disclosure provided.

The court found that credibility findings could not be made on the untested affidavit evidence and that primary source documentation was lacking.

The court directed a focused hearing to determine the appropriate allocation of the university expenses.

The respondent mother, a member of the Canadian Armed Forces, brought a motion for a temporary order permitting her to relocate the parties' two children from Chalk River to Kingston due to a military posting.

The applicant father brought a cross-motion seeking an order that the children remain in Chalk River and that the existing shared parenting arrangement continue.

Applying the Plumley principles for interim relocation, the court found a genuine issue for trial and no compelling circumstances to justify an interim move that would disrupt the children's stable environment and close contact with the father.

The mother's motion was dismissed, and the father's cross-motion was granted in part, maintaining the status quo pending trial.

The moving party brought a motion for leave to appeal an earlier order.

The Divisional Court dismissed the motion for leave to appeal and awarded costs of $5,000 to each of the two responding party groups.

The appellant appealed an order dismissing her request to remove the court-appointed Liquidator of a corporation and approving the Liquidator's accounts.

The appellant argued the Liquidator was improperly aligned with the respondent Estate and that the motion judge should have drawn an adverse inference from the lack of evidence explaining communications between them.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding no palpable and overriding error in the motion judge's factual findings or his refusal to draw an adverse inference, and upheld the approval of the accounts.

Following a 29-year marriage, the parties sought a determination on equalization, section 7 expenses for their adult daughter's post-secondary education, and spousal support.

The court determined the equalization payment, finding that certain joint bank accounts containing the respondent's inheritances were excluded property due to a resulting trust.

The court ordered both parties to equally share the daughter's outstanding OSAP loan.

The respondent's claim for retroactive spousal support was dismissed, but ongoing spousal support of $600 per month was awarded based on both compensatory and needs-based grounds.

This is a costs endorsement from the Court of Appeal for Ontario, following an appeal where the lower court's judgment and costs order were set aside and the application remitted for rehearing.

The parties were unable to agree on the disposition of the original application costs.

The Court of Appeal determined that the fairest approach was to leave the issue of the application costs to the trier of fact on the rehearing, whether before a Superior Court judge or in an arbitral process.

Appeal costs had previously been awarded to the appellants.

This is an appeal concerning the interpretation of a complex project agreement for the Eglinton Crosstown LRT in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The application judge had found that a specific contractual provision (s. 62.1(c)) requiring a "Variation Enquiry" was triggered by an internal email from the Crown agencies to their own staff, which was never sent to the consortium.

The Court of Appeal found that the application judge made a palpable and overriding error in concluding that this internal email constituted notification to the consortium.

The appeal was allowed, the original judgment set aside, and the application remitted to the Superior Court for a rehearing to consider other arguments, including good faith and the indivisibility of the Crown, which the application judge had not addressed.

Guaranteed Funeral Deposits of Canada (Fraternal) applied to enforce its interpretation of an amending agreement with Assurant Life of Canada.

Assurant cross-applied for rescission of the agreement, alleging misrepresentation.

The court found that Guaranteed misled Assurant by misstating facts regarding the omission of a clause from the 2012 agreement, whether innocently or deliberately.

Assurant relied on this misrepresentation, which was material.

The court granted Assurant's cross-application for rescission, declaring the amending agreement void, and dismissed Guaranteed's application.

The applicant father brought a motion to expand his parenting time with his two children and to have it unsupervised.

The respondent mother opposed, citing the father's recent criminal charges, substance abuse issues, and mental health concerns, and requested sole decision-making authority and child support.

The court found that while the father has a loving relationship with the children, the mother raised reasonable concerns necessitating temporary supervised parenting time until further evidence regarding his alcohol issues and criminal charges could be assessed.

The court ordered expanded supervised parenting time by an agreed-upon third party and ordered the father to pay $1,000 per month in child support.

The plaintiffs brought a motion to amend their medical malpractice Statement of Claim to substitute Dr. Renato Natale for the pseudonym 'Dr. John/Jane Doe Gynecological Attending'.

The motion was brought after the presumptive expiry of the limitation period.

The court applied the 'litigation finger' test and found that a person with knowledge of the facts would be aware of the true identity of the misnamed defendant from reading the pleading.

Finding no undue prejudice to the proposed defendant, the court exercised its discretion to grant the amendment.

The respondent brought a motion to remove the court-appointed liquidator of a real estate company, alleging a conflict of interest and collaboration with the applicant Estate.

The liquidator sought approval of its activities, fees, and an extension of a listing agreement for the sale of properties.

The court dismissed the motion to remove the liquidator, finding no evidence of bad faith or blatant intentional action contrary to the interests of the parties.

The court approved the liquidator's fees and the extension of the listing agreement, noting the fees were fair and reasonable.

The respondent father brought a motion to vary a temporary order to increase his parenting time with three of his children.

He alleged that the applicant mother was alienating the children from him and that increased time would provide greater predictability.

The applicant opposed the motion, citing differing parenting styles, safety concerns regarding COVID-19, and the children's expressed preferences.

The Office of the Children's Lawyer submitted that the current arrangement was consistent with the children's views.

The court dismissed the motion, finding no compelling reasons or demonstrated change in circumstances to justify altering the interim parenting schedule, noting that the children's comfort with the status quo was not persuasively linked to alienation.

The moving parties sought leave to appeal an order dismissing their motion for a stay of proceedings.

The Divisional Court dismissed the motion for leave to appeal and awarded costs of $10,000 to the responding parties.

The applicants sought $430,000 in costs following a successful application regarding a construction dispute.

The respondents argued that a settlement offer they made should limit the applicants' costs to the period before the offer, and that disbursements for online legal research should not be compensable.

The court found that the respondents' non-monetary settlement offer was more favourable than the judgment obtained by the applicants, as it would have led to a faster final determination of the underlying dispute.

Consequently, the applicants' costs were limited to $92,119.92 incurred before the offer.

The court also disallowed the $4,060.18 claimed for online legal research, finding the applicants failed to prove these costs did not fall within standard office overhead.

Following the dismissal of the appellants' appeal regarding trustee compensation on a passing of accounts, the parties made written submissions on costs.

The respondent (former trustee) sought full indemnity costs of $134,394.86, while the appellants argued for partial indemnity costs payable by the trust and sought their own costs from the trust.

The Divisional Court held that the respondent was entitled to full indemnity costs because he incurred them in his capacity as trustee.

The court fixed the respondent's costs at $90,000 all-inclusive, ordering a blended costs award where the appellants pay 60 percent and the trust pays 40 percent.

The appellants were ordered to bear their own costs.

The plaintiffs successfully moved to strike the defendant's statement of defence for failure to deliver a proper affidavit of documents, answer undertakings, and pay an unpaid costs order.

The plaintiffs sought costs of $16,770.71 on a full indemnity basis.

The court found that the costs claim improperly included steps taken prior to previous costs orders.

The court limited the costs entitlement to the period subsequent to the last costs order and awarded the plaintiffs $1,550 inclusive of fees, disbursements, and HST on a full indemnity basis.

The applicant sought continued child support for the parties' 18-year-old child who was completing high school and planning to attend university.

The respondent argued the child was no longer a child of the marriage due to her unilateral estrangement from him.

The court held that the child remained a child of the marriage, noting that situational conflict does not disentitle a child to support.

The court ordered child support to continue until the end of August and directed the parties to discuss a financial plan for the child's post-secondary education.

The applicants, a consortium of construction companies building the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, sought declarations that the COVID-19 pandemic constituted an Emergency under their Project Agreement, entitling them to a Variation Enquiry for an extension of the Substantial Completion Date.

The respondents moved to stay the application, arguing the contract required all litigation to be deferred until after Substantial Completion.

The court dismissed the motion for a stay, finding it would cause irreparable harm by depriving the applicants of their contractual right to seek an extension.

The court granted the declarations, holding that the pandemic was an Emergency and that the respondents had required the applicants to implement additional or overriding procedures (social distancing), thereby triggering the Variation Enquiry process.