Michael R. Dambrot

During a first-degree murder trial, the accused brought an application under s. 24(1) of the Charter to exclude the evidence of a Crown witness, arguing that the police's failure to properly record and preserve evidence from group meetings with witnesses breached his rights under ss. 7 and 11(d).

The court dismissed the application, finding that the police did not deliberately fail to make a record to avoid production, and that the imperfect note-taking and group interviews did not render the trial unfair given the extensive disclosure available to the defence for cross-examination.

During a trial for first degree murder, the Crown brought an application to admit several ante-mortem hearsay statements made by the deceased to his mother and cousin.

The statements detailed a history of animosity and fear of the accused.

The court applied the principled exception to the hearsay rule, assessing the threshold reliability of each statement.

The court admitted several statements that possessed sufficient circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness, such as those made shortly after traumatic events or expressing present fear.

However, the court excluded other statements that were made under circumstances of suspicion or were inextricably intertwined with double hearsay.

The court also declined the defence's request to cross-examine the deceased's mother on the voir dire, finding that her preliminary inquiry transcripts were sufficient to assess threshold reliability and that her credibility was not so deficient as to rob the statements of all probative value.

The offender was found guilty by a jury of aggravated assault after stabbing the victim twice in the back with a large knife in an unprovoked attack.

He was also found guilty of two counts of failing to comply with a probation order.

The court considered the offender's serious criminal record, his difficult upbringing, and his Aboriginal background under Gladue principles.

The court sentenced the offender to 5 years' imprisonment for the aggravated assault and 9 months concurrent for the probation breaches, less credit for pre-sentence custody, resulting in a net sentence of 1 year and 102 days.

The applicant, charged with first degree murder, brought an application to quash his committal to stand trial following a preliminary inquiry.

He argued there was no evidence that he forcibly confined the deceased distinct from the act of killing during a robbery in a small washroom.

The reviewing judge dismissed the application, finding there was some evidence upon which a properly instructed jury could conclude the applicant unlawfully confined the deceased for a period of time beyond what was integral to the killing.

The Crown brought a pre-trial motion seeking a ruling that the accused had waived solicitor-client privilege regarding communications with his former counsel.

The accused had filed a written waiver at the preliminary hearing, purporting to limit the waiver to oral communications during a specific time period and solely for the purpose of the preliminary hearing.

The court held that the waiver could not be limited to the preliminary hearing, as doing so would allow the accused to use privilege as a sword rather than a shield and risk misleading the court.

The Crown was permitted to cross-examine the former counsel on any relevant communications within the specified time frame.

The accused, charged with nine drug offences, applied for a Rowbotham order after being denied legal aid funding.

The Crown conceded that the accused's right to a fair trial would be compromised without counsel but contested his indigency and whether he had exhausted all appeals.

The court found that the accused had exhausted his appeals and met the test for indigency, despite his initial failure to provide complete financial disclosure to Legal Aid Ontario.

The application was allowed, and the charges were ordered stayed unless the Crown agreed to provide funding at Legal Aid tariff rates.

The offenders participated in a group assault on the victim following an altercation at a rave.

Triolo stabbed the victim in the chest, committing second-degree murder.

Lozada and Ramos participated in the group assault, making the victim vulnerable to the stabbing, and were convicted of manslaughter.

Triolo was sentenced to life imprisonment with no parole eligibility for 12 years.

Lozada and Ramos were each sentenced to three years imprisonment, less credit for pre-trial custody.

The accused was tried for attempted murder and aggravated assault following a stabbing in an apartment building.

During the trial, the accused brought an application for a stay of proceedings, arguing that his section 7 Charter rights were violated because the police failed to seize and preserve video surveillance footage from the building's lobby.

The court dismissed the application, finding that the police were not unacceptably negligent as they had no reason to believe the lobby video was relevant until months later.

Furthermore, the defence knew of the video's existence from the outset but took no steps to obtain it, and the video would not have captured the actual altercation.

Mustafa Ururyar appealed his conviction and sentence for sexual assault.

The trial judge had found him guilty and sentenced him to 18 months imprisonment and three years probation, also ordering $8,000 restitution for the complainant's legal costs.

The appeal focused on the trial judge's reasoning process, alleging reasonable apprehension of bias, improper judicial notice of academic commentary, different standards of scrutiny for evidence, unreasonable verdict due to irrational reasoning, misapprehension of evidence, and error in assessing consent.

The appellate court found the trial judge's reasons for judgment to be conclusory and incomprehensible, failing to adequately explain the resolution of credibility conflicts or why the appellant's evidence did not raise a reasonable doubt.

The trial judge's reliance on academic literature and personal opinions about rape, and apparent "backwards reasoning" from rape literature to identify the accused as a rapist, was deemed impermissible.

The appeal was allowed, and a new trial ordered, due to the deficiencies frustrating meaningful appellate review and prejudicing the appellant's right to appeal.

The issue of restitution for legal fees was not addressed.

Following the dismissal of an application for judicial review regarding autism funding, the respondent sought costs against the applicant's counsel personally.

The court found that the applicant's counsel had engaged in unreasonable conduct, including making baseless allegations of falsified records, failing to comply with undertakings, and causing unnecessary delays.

Applying the test under Rule 57.07, the court ordered the applicant's counsel to personally pay the respondent's costs, fixed at $50,000.

Following the dismissal of the tenants' appeals from Landlord and Tenant Board orders terminating their tenancies, the successful landlord sought costs.

The landlord claimed $6,257.85 from each appellant on a partial indemnity basis.

Taking into account the appellants' expectations and the significant overlap of work on each appeal, the Divisional Court fixed costs at $3,500 against each tenant individually, all inclusive.

Michael Davani, charged with second-degree murder, brought an application to exclude evidence of his self-identification and association with the deceased, Kwado Mensah.

Davani alleged Charter violations (ss. 7, 8, 9, 10(b)), involuntariness of his statement, unreliability of dock identification, and inadmissibility of Mensah's self-identification as hearsay.

The court found no detention for ss. 7, 9, 10(b) purposes when Davani identified himself, but a s. 8 Charter breach for an unobtrusive pat-down search.

Applying s. 24(2) factors, the court declined to exclude the evidence, finding the state conduct not serious and the impact on Charter interests minimal.

Davani's self-identification was deemed voluntary, the dock identification admissible with a limiting instruction, and Mensah's self-identification admissible as circumstantial evidence or a traditional hearsay exception.

The application was dismissed.

The applicant lawyer sought judicial review of a decision by the Law Society Tribunal Appeal Division, which had overturned a Hearing Division decision and ordered her interlocutory suspension pending a conduct application.

The Law Society alleged the applicant was involved in the misuse of trust funds and had facilitated the practice of law by her suspended former partner, with whom she had resumed a romantic relationship.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, finding that the Appeal Division reasonably concluded the Hearing Division had misapprehended evidence amounting to an error of law, and that the interlocutory suspension was necessary to protect the public interest.

The applicant sought judicial review of a Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario decision dismissing his complaint that s. 10(5) of the Coroners Act discriminates against migrant farm workers by denying them mandatory inquests into workplace deaths, a benefit extended to mining and construction workers.

The Divisional Court held that the Tribunal reasonably applied the two-step Kapp test for discrimination and reasonably concluded that the exclusion of migrant farm workers from mandatory inquests did not violate s. 1 of the Human Rights Code, given their lower risk of fatal workplace injury and lesser variety of hazards compared to construction and mining workers.

The application for judicial review was dismissed.

The appellants, residential tenants, appealed orders of the Landlord and Tenant Board terminating their tenancies and denying relief from eviction.

The tenants had been temporarily relocated to other units owned by the landlord during the redevelopment of their original building, pursuant to a s. 37 Planning Act agreement.

When the new building was ready, the tenants refused to vacate the temporary units.

The Board found this substantially interfered with the landlord's lawful rights.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeals, holding that the standard of review was reasonableness, the eviction notices were valid, and the Board reasonably concluded that the agreement to terminate the temporary tenancies did not violate s. 37(5) of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006.

During a trial for second-degree murder and manslaughter, the Crown sought to introduce twenty-two post-mortem photographs of the deceased through a forensic pathologist.

The defence objected, arguing the photographs were highly prejudicial and of limited probative value.

The court balanced the probative value against the risk of reasoning prejudice, finding the photographs were relevant to the nature of the injuries and corroboration of eyewitnesses.

The court admitted twenty-one of the photographs, directing that three be presented in black and white to minimize any potential prejudice.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons appealed a penalty imposed by its Discipline Committee on a physician found to have sexually abused four female patients and committed unprofessional conduct toward a fifth.

The Committee had imposed a six-month suspension and practice restrictions.

The Divisional Court allowed the appeal, finding the penalty clearly unfit and unreasonable given the gravity of the misconduct, the inconsistent factual findings regarding the physician's intent, and the need for general deterrence to eradicate sexual abuse in the profession.

The penalty was quashed and remitted to the Committee.

The appellant physician appealed a Discipline Committee decision finding her guilty of sexual abuse and revoking her license.

The finding of sexual abuse was based on a romantic kiss with a vulnerable patient.

The appellant argued the doctor-patient relationship had ended prior to the kiss and that the Committee breached procedural fairness by refusing to admit a letter from the patient after the close of evidence.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding no breach of procedural fairness, no reversal of the burden of proof, and that the penalty of revocation was reasonable given the extensive history of boundary violations and professional misconduct.

The applicants sought judicial review of a Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal (WSIAT) decision that barred their civil action for personal injuries sustained in a bridge collapse.

The WSIAT had determined that the injured applicant was a 'worker' rather than an 'executive officer' of his company, thereby precluding the lawsuit under the historic trade-off of the workplace insurance scheme.

The Divisional Court applied a reasonableness standard of review and found that the WSIAT did not err in its treatment of the evidence, its allocation of the burden of proof, or its ultimate conclusion.

The application for judicial review was dismissed.

The appellants appealed a decision finding they had oppressed the respondent shareholder in a closely-held family corporation and ordering them to purchase her shares for $4.25 million.

The appellants argued the application judge erred by not directing a trial, by finding oppression despite the respondent's alleged misconduct in a related family dispute, and by improperly mixing and matching expert valuation evidence.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, holding that a trial was unnecessary under the Hryniak principles, that the alleged family misconduct was irrelevant to the corporate duties owed, and that the application judge properly chose between competing expert methodologies to determine fair value.