Nicole Godfrey

This decision concerns the sentencing of two co-accused, Jason Nahmabin and James Armstrong, who pleaded guilty to being accessories after the fact to murder.

Andrew Chute was murdered in April 2022.

Nahmabin, a drug dealer, was instrumental in bringing the victim to the scene and actively assisted the killers post-murder by retrieving evidence and instructing the co-accused to remain silent and destroy evidence.

Armstrong, a first-time offender with addiction issues, drove the killers from the scene and initially lied to police before cooperating.

The court applied sentencing principles, including denunciation, deterrence, and rehabilitation, and extensively considered Gladue factors for Nahmabin.

Armstrong received a 22-month conditional sentence with house arrest and probation, while Nahmabin received four years of incarceration.

The accused was tried for the second-degree murder of his wife, whose body was found near a gas tank on their property.

The Crown's case was entirely circumstantial, relying on motive, opportunity, and post-offence conduct, including the accused's destruction of his wife's poetry.

The defence argued the victim may have interrupted a gas theft or been killed by an alternate suspect with whom she was having an affair.

The court found the investigation had tunnel vision and failed to adequately explore other possibilities.

Concluding that the accused's guilt was not the only reasonable inference to be drawn from the evidence, the court found the accused not guilty.

The defence brought an application to admit expert testimony from a psychotherapist on the issue of traumatic grief, specifically to explain the accused's conduct in discarding his murdered wife's poetry as a coping mechanism.

The Crown opposed the admission.

The court analyzed the necessity criterion under the Mohan framework for expert evidence.

The application was dismissed, with the court finding that the trier of fact possesses the requisite experience and knowledge to understand that grieving individuals may react in unpredictable ways, rendering the expert assistance unnecessary.

The applicant, Roger Craig Short, charged with first-degree murder, sought to admit evidence from a failed "Project Somerton" undercover police operation (a "Mr. Big" scenario) where he did not confess.

The defence argued the statements were admissible under the Edgar exception, as unique evidence from a failed "Mr. Big" project, or as evidence of consciousness of innocence.

The court dismissed the application, finding the Edgar exception inapplicable due to lack of spontaneity and no undertaking to testify.

The "Mr. Big" argument was rejected as the project was not "unbeatable" and lacked the inducements/threats seen in Hart.

While the court initially considered admitting the evidence to counter Crown's post-offence conduct evidence, the Crown subsequently abandoned significant portions of its post-offence conduct evidence, rendering the Project Somerton evidence lacking sufficient probative value for admission.

This pre-trial application in a first-degree murder trial addressed the admissibility of hearsay evidence, specifically ante-mortem statements made by the deceased, Barbara Short.

The Crown sought to admit these statements to establish the deceased's state of mind, the nature of her marriage, the accused's animus and motive, and her future intentions.

The defence contested much of this evidence, citing concerns about reliability due to "circumstances of suspicion" and potential "impression management" by the deceased, and argued that the evidence was cumulative and prejudicial.

The defence also sought to admit several hearsay statements of its own.

The court applied the principled approach to hearsay, balancing threshold reliability against probative value and prejudicial effect.

The plaintiffs sued the defendant, a land use consulting company, for professional negligence causing pure economic loss.

The defendant third-partied its lawyers and subsequently filed for bankruptcy, staying the action.

The plaintiffs moved to lift the stay under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act to access the bankrupt's professional liability insurance.

The third parties opposed, arguing that under Ontario law (Perry v. General Security Insurance), s. 132 of the Insurance Act does not permit direct recovery against an insurer for pure economic loss.

The Registrar granted the motion, lifting the stay to allow the plaintiffs to amend their claim to seek a declaration that the bankrupt holds the insurance policy in trust, thereby utilizing equitable principles to bypass the strictures of s. 132.

The defendants brought a motion under Rules 21.01, 25.06 and 25.11 of the Rules of Civil Procedure to strike paragraphs of the plaintiffs’ Statement of Claim, or alternatively strike the claim entirely, alleging it disclosed no reasonable cause of action and was frivolous or vexatious.

The action arose from a long‑standing neighbour dispute involving repeated complaints to police and municipal authorities, and alleged malicious prosecution related to withdrawn or dismissed charges.

Applying the “plain and obvious” test from Supreme Court jurisprudence governing motions to strike, the court held that the pleadings disclosed arguable causes of action including harassment, nuisance, intentional infliction of mental suffering, and malicious prosecution.

The pleaded facts provided sufficient particulars and context to permit the defendants to respond.

The motion to strike was therefore dismissed and the plaintiffs were awarded costs.

The moving defendants sought leave under Rule 29.02(1.2) of the Rules of Civil Procedure to issue a third party claim against an alarm monitoring company in an action alleging failure by insurance brokers to obtain adequate insurance coverage for stock spoilage.

The plaintiff opposed the motion on the basis that adding the third party would cause delay and prejudice.

The court held that leave should be granted unless the plaintiff would suffer meaningful prejudice, and found no evidence that witnesses or documents had been lost due to the delay.

The court also held that limitation period concerns were not determinative at the leave stage because the discoverability provisions of the Limitations Act, 2002 might postpone the running of the limitation period.

Leave to issue the third party claim was granted and service by courier on the proposed third party was validated.