Meg Bennett

The appellant tenant appealed a summary judgment ordering it to pay over $1.1 million in alleged profits earned from a commercial sublease to the respondent landlord.

The motion judge had interpreted the lease to preclude the tenant from deducting the rent it paid for unusable open-air space on the sublet floor, and found the claim was governed by the 6-year limitation period under the Real Property Limitations Act.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, holding that the motion judge's interpretation ignored the factual matrix and resulted in a commercial absurdity.

The tenant was entitled to deduct the full rent paid for the floor, meaning it incurred a $2.6 million loss, not a profit.

The Court also held that the obligation to remit profit was not 'rent', and therefore the 2-year limitation period under the Limitations Act, 2002 applied.

The plaintiff landlord and defendant tenant both brought motions for summary judgment regarding the interpretation of a commercial lease.

The landlord claimed the tenant owed over $2 million in profits from three subleases, while the tenant argued it incurred losses after deducting reasonable costs.

The court held that the tenant could not deduct rent paid for retained Atrium space as a reasonable cost of the subleases.

However, the court found that rent lost during rent-free fixturing periods, as well as legal fees and real estate commissions, were reasonable costs that could be deducted from the sublease profits.

The joint liquidators of Stanford International Bank (SIB) and a group of investors brought actions against TD Bank, SIB's primary U.S. dollar correspondent bank, for knowing assistance in breach of fiduciary duty and negligence.

The plaintiffs alleged that TD Bank should have detected and prevented the massive Ponzi scheme orchestrated by SIB's owner, Allen Stanford.

The Superior Court of Justice dismissed the actions, finding that TD Bank had no actual knowledge of the fraud and was not reckless or wilfully blind.

The court also held that TD Bank did not owe a novel duty of care to protect its customer from insider abuse, and even if it did, it met the standard of care of a reasonable banker during the relevant period.

The plaintiff, a warehouse attendant at a dairy distribution center, was terminated for cause after being caught on video vaping inside the facility.

The employer argued this violated company policies, food safety regulations, and the Smoke Free Ontario Act, 2017.

The court found that the employer failed to establish the plaintiff knew vaping was prohibited under the general no-smoking policy, as the policy did not explicitly mention vaping and the required statutory signage had not yet been posted.

The court concluded that termination was a disproportionate response and that progressive discipline should have been applied.

The plaintiff was awarded four months' pay in lieu of notice, less mitigation earnings.

The plaintiffs, two major banks, sued to recover funds wired to the defendant money services business as a result of a fraud perpetrated by third parties.

The defendant brought a motion for summary judgment, arguing it received the funds without knowledge of the fraud and changed its position in good faith by arranging equivalent payments in Chinese yuan to a foreign account.

The court dismissed the motion, finding genuine issues for trial regarding whether the defendant actually changed its position in good faith, given conflicting expert evidence on its anti-money laundering compliance and the lack of direct evidence regarding the foreign exchange transactions.

The plaintiffs in a competition law class action regarding price-fixing of lithium ion batteries brought a motion for consent certification for settlement purposes against the Maxell defendants.

The settlement agreement provided for a payment of $300,000 USD.

The court found that the criteria for certification under section 5 of the Class Proceedings Act, 1992 were met, noting that the criteria may be less rigorously applied in a settlement context.

The motion for certification for settlement purposes and approval of the notice plan was granted.

The plaintiffs in a certified competition law class action regarding price-fixing of lithium-ion batteries moved for approval of settlements with the LG Chem and Toshiba defendants, as well as for approval of class counsel fees.

The court found the settlements, which provided approximately $5.1 million from LG Chem and $264,000 from Toshiba, to be fair, reasonable, and in the best interests of the class.

The court also approved class counsel's fee request of approximately $1.18 million, representing a 25% contingency fee, finding it reasonable given the risks undertaken and the results achieved.