Nooruddin Waliani

The applicants, five adult children of the deceased, brought an application against the deceased's spouse, the respondent, claiming that approximately $7,000,000 in assets held either in the respondent's name or jointly were held on a resulting trust for the deceased's estate.

The court found that the deceased had a history of placing assets in others' names to avoid creditors.

The respondent failed to comply with court orders to produce financial records to prove she contributed to the assets, leading the court to draw adverse inferences against her.

The court concluded that the deceased funded the assets and did not intend to gift them to the respondent, declaring all disputed assets to be held on a resulting trust for the estate.

The plaintiffs brought a motion for summary judgment after the defendants failed to close on an agreement of purchase and sale for a residential property.

The defendants argued that the plaintiffs failed to mitigate their damages by rejecting an offer to reduce the purchase price by $50,000 and subsequently selling the property to a third party for $298,000 less than the original contract price.

The court found that the plaintiffs acted reasonably in their mitigation efforts and were not obligated to accept a new bargain from the breaching purchasers.

Summary judgment was granted, awarding the plaintiffs $368,585.95 in damages, representing the difference in sale price and carrying costs, less the deposit.

The applicant mother brought a motion seeking an order that the parties' seven-year-old child attend school in person and participate in an after-school program.

The respondent father argued the child should attend school online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, claiming the child had a weakened immune system.

The mother also sought to vacate a prior consent order prohibiting her new partner from being present during her access time.

The court ordered that the child attend school in person, finding no medical evidence to support the father's claims and adopting recent jurisprudence that governments, not courts, are best positioned to assess pandemic risks in schools.

The court also vacated the access prohibition regarding the mother's partner, noting that child protection authorities had not verified any concerns, but required a phase-in schedule to introduce the partner to the child.