Court of Appeal

The appellant insurer denied third-party liability coverage to the owner of an ATV after his son, who held only a G1 licence, was involved in a serious accident while driving the ATV on a highway.

The motion judge found that the owner had only permitted his son to drive on a specific lane he mistakenly believed was not a highway, and did not permit him to drive on the highway where the accident occurred.

The motion judge concluded the owner was not in breach of Statutory Condition 4(1) at the time of the incident, and alternatively granted relief from forfeiture.

The Court of Appeal found no palpable and overriding error in the motion judge's factual findings regarding the scope of permission granted, and dismissed the appeal.

The moving parties sought reconsideration of a prior decision by the Court of Appeal dismissing their appeal, presenting new evidence.

The court dismissed the motion for reconsideration, affirming that such requests are granted only in very exceptional cases and that the new evidence did not undermine the basis for the original appeal dismissal.

Costs were awarded to the responding party.

The appellant, convicted of serious drug and firearm offences and sentenced to 20 years, sought bail pending appeal.

The Crown conceded the appeal was not frivolous but argued against release due to flight risk and public interest concerns.

The court found the appellant was not a flight risk given his strong release plan and compliance history, and that detention was not necessary in the public interest, balancing enforceability and reviewability interests.

The application for bail pending appeal was granted.

The appellant, Pierre Senatus, appealed his conviction for aggravated assault and other charges, alleging ineffective assistance of counsel.

He claimed his trial counsel failed to introduce exculpatory social media posts and did not raise a reasonable apprehension of bias against the trial judge.

The Court of Appeal found no basis for the ineffective assistance claim, concluding that the alleged evidence was either not provided to counsel, lacked evidentiary value, or that counsel's actions were competent.

The court also determined there was no basis for a reasonable apprehension of bias.

The appeal from conviction and sentence was dismissed.

The appellant, Brent William Diehl, appealed his conviction for sexual assault with a weapon, arguing that the trial judge relied on myths and stereotypes in assessing credibility and applied uneven scrutiny to the evidence.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario dismissed the appeal, finding no error in the trial judge's analysis, which correctly applied the principles of credibility assessment and reasonable doubt, and did not engage in stereotypical reasoning or uneven scrutiny.

The trial judge's assessment of the complainant's evidence as credible and reliable, and the appellant's account as illogical, was upheld.

The mother (C.V.F.), as appellant, sought a review of a prior order refusing a stay of a trial decision concerning parenting time and decision-making authority, and a further extension of time to perfect her appeal.

The Court of Appeal panel dismissed the motion for review, finding no basis to interfere with the previous order, which was deemed to be in the child's best interests given the extensive and prolonged litigation.

The panel also refused any further extensions for perfecting the appeal, citing multiple delays and the mother's failure to address deficiencies in her appeal materials or even read the trial decision.

The appellant, Ahmad Mohammad (also known as Ahmad Yousef), brought three appeals from Superior Court orders dismissing his actions under Rule 2.1.01 of the Rules of Civil Procedure.

The Court of Appeal considered dismissing the appeals and revoking the appellant's fee waivers under the Administration of Justice Act.

The court found the proceedings to be frivolous, vexatious, and an abuse of process, lacking intelligible grounds or causes of action.

The panel review motions for two appeals (McMaster University and Chaimowitz) were dismissed under r. 2.1.02, and the third appeal (Google) was dismissed under r. 2.1.01 for failure to perfect.

The court also revoked the appellant's fee waivers and prohibited further fee waiver requests without judicial permission.

No costs were awarded.

Mr. Clare appealed his conviction, arguing his guilty plea was involuntary due to ineffective assistance of counsel.

He had pleaded guilty to possession of hydromorphone for trafficking and possession of proceeds of crime.

The Court of Appeal reviewed the plea inquiry transcript and trial counsel's notes, finding that the plea was informed and voluntary.

The court concluded that the appellant had not met the high threshold required to establish ineffective assistance of counsel.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant, convicted of second-degree murder, appealed on two grounds: the constitutionality of the amended s. 232(2) of the Criminal Code regarding provocation, and alleged errors in the trial judge's jury charge on the Not Criminally Responsible (NCR) defence.

The Court of Appeal declined to rule on the constitutional question, finding it was raised tactically for the first time on appeal and lacked an air of reality.

The court also found no reversible error in the NCR instructions, clarifying that the jury was properly guided on the disjunctive nature of the s. 16 test.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant was convicted of sexual assault, sexual interference, and making sexually explicit materials available to a child.

The appeal challenged these convictions on grounds of the trial judge's misapprehension of the complainant's evidence regarding her mother's presence during the alleged sexual touching, and the sufficiency of the trial judge's reasons.

The majority of the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal in part, setting aside the convictions for sexual assault and sexual interference and ordering a new trial on those counts, finding that the trial judge had materially misapprehended key evidence and provided insufficient reasons.

However, the conviction for making sexually explicit material available was upheld.

The dissenting judge would have dismissed the entire appeal, arguing that the trial judge correctly applied the common sense approach to child witnesses and that reasons were sufficient.

The appellant, Krzysztof Harasiuk, appealed a 24-month sentence imposed after he pleaded guilty to 10 offences, arguing the sentencing judge erred in rejecting a joint submission for "time served." The Court of Appeal for Ontario allowed the appeal, reducing the sentence to "time served." The Court found that the sentencing judge improperly applied a fitness test rather than the stringent "administration of justice into disrepute" standard required for departing from joint submissions.

It emphasized the importance of joint submissions for judicial efficiency and certainty, concluding that the proposed sentence, which amounted to 14 months with credit for pre-sentence custody and house arrest, would not have brought the administration of justice into disrepute, especially considering the resource savings from the omnibus plea.

The appellant, N.H., appealed his convictions for four counts of assault and one count of sexual assault, and his three-year custody sentence.

The primary ground of appeal was ineffective assistance of counsel, specifically regarding counsel's limited role under s. 486.3 of the Criminal Code, failure to pursue exculpatory evidence, and the appellant's seating arrangement at trial.

The Court of Appeal found no basis for the claims of unfair trial or ineffective assistance, concluding that counsel acted competently and went beyond their limited appointment.

The court also dismissed the appellant's complaint about appeal delay.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant, Robert Lavergne, appealed his 17-month global sentence for sexual assault and sexual exploitation, arguing the sentence was unfit and that post-sentence changes to conditional sentencing law (Bill C-5) required reconsideration, including the constitutionality of the mandatory minimum sentence for sexual exploitation.

The Court of Appeal granted leave to appeal but dismissed the appeal.

The court found that the changes in law did not compel a reconsideration of the sentence or the constitutional challenge, as the trial judge's imposed sentence was fit and exceeded the minimum, and a conditional sentence would not have been imposed even under the new law.

The sentences were not demonstrably unfit, considering the profound psychological harm to the victims and the appellant's abuse of trust as a teacher.

The appellant sought to withdraw his guilty plea to one count of uttering threats, claiming he was pressured due to being in custody and unable to afford trial counsel.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the plea was informed and voluntary.

The court noted that while pressures exist when pleading guilty in custody, the plea comprehension inquiry conducted by the trial judge, coupled with the appellant's representation by counsel and lack of voiced concerns at the time, indicated a clear and informed waiver of his right to trial.

The appeal against sentence was also dismissed as the sentence had already been served.

The appellants, U.K. and R.P., appealed their convictions for sexual assault, arguing the trial judge erred in jury instructions regarding fabrication as post-offence conduct and the application of the W.(D.) principles.

The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge erred by instructing the jury on fabrication of trial evidence without independent evidence, and by providing a deficient fabrication instruction that failed to distinguish between disbelieved and fabricated evidence, explain independent evidence, or require consideration of alternative explanations.

Furthermore, the trial judge erred in the W.(D.) instruction by conflating the appellants' evidence and treating defence evidence as an all-or-nothing proposition.

These errors were deemed prejudicial, going to the heart of credibility assessment and the burden of proof.

The court declined to apply the curative proviso.

The appellant, D.G., appealed his conviction for sexual assault.

The trial judge had found significant credibility issues with the complainant's evidence, including inconsistencies and missing journals, but still convicted.

The Court of Appeal found the trial judge's reasons inadequate for failing to explain how he could believe the complainant's evidence despite these identified credibility problems.

The appeal was allowed, the conviction set aside, and a new trial ordered.

The appellant, a young person, appealed convictions for sexual assault and unlawful confinement.

The Court of Appeal allowed the conviction appeal and ordered a new trial, finding that the trial judge's reasons were insufficient as they did not provide an adequate pathway to support the convictions, particularly regarding the appellant's role as a party to the offences.

The trial judge's instruction on party liability under section 21 of the Criminal Code was found to be erroneous, and the reasons failed to specify how the appellant aided or abetted the commission of the offences.

The husband appealed a lower court decision that set aside two Quebec marriage contracts, which had stipulated separation as to property, thereby allowing the wife to pursue an equalization claim under Ontario's Family Law Act.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the husband's appeal, upholding the application judge's discretionary decision to set aside the contracts.

The basis for setting aside included the husband's failure to disclose significant assets (a $4 million inheritance) and the wife's lack of understanding of the contracts' nature and consequences, particularly regarding her entitlement to share in the income from inherited property, which is not automatically excluded from net family property under Ontario or Quebec law unless expressly stated by the testator/donor.

The appellant, Mostafa Alkhalil, appealed his conviction for sexual assault and unlawful confinement, and sought leave to appeal his six-year sentence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed both the conviction appeal and the sentence appeal.

The court found no misapprehension of evidence by the trial judge regarding the victim's testimony.

It affirmed that the trial judge correctly considered the appellant's creation of an expectation of trust and the victim's lack of consent as aggravating factors.

The sentence was deemed proportionate and consistent with sentencing principles for serious sexual offences involving vulnerable victims.

This is a costs endorsement following an appeal where the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal on a preliminary jurisdictional question raised by the court itself, rather than on the substantive issues.

The court had determined that neither the application judge nor the Court of Appeal had jurisdiction to decide whether a proposed payment would constitute an offence under the Criminal Code.

Given these unique circumstances, where the disposition was based on a threshold jurisdictional question posed by the panel and did not determine the underlying substantive issues, the court ordered that each party bear their own costs below and on appeal.