Court of Appeal

The applicant, convicted of second-degree murder following a fatal altercation at a bar, applied for judicial interim release pending his appeal.

The central issue on appeal was causation, with the applicant seeking to introduce fresh expert evidence suggesting the deceased died from alcohol concussion syndrome triggered by a co-accused's subsequent punch, rather than the applicant's initial assault.

The Court of Appeal found that the proposed fresh evidence raised an arguable ground of appeal, satisfying the requirement that the appeal not be frivolous.

Concluding that the applicant's detention was not necessary in the public interest, the court granted release pending appeal on strict conditions.

The appellants, two former doctoral students, appealed an order striking their 187-page Statement of Claim as an abuse of process without leave to amend.

They conceded the original claim was properly struck but argued they should have been granted leave to file a narrower amended claim.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no basis to interfere with the motion judge's discretionary decision, as the proposed claims were an indirect attempt to appeal internal academic decisions that should be addressed through judicial review.

The appeal and leave to appeal costs were dismissed.

The appellant appealed his conviction, arguing that the Information to Obtain (ITO) was misleading because it omitted the phrase 'he is not a drinker', failed to state that no one smelled alcohol on his breath, and because the officer testified at the preliminary inquiry that he only had a 'suspicion' rather than reasonable and probable grounds.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no meaningful difference caused by the omissions and accepting the officer's explanation at trial, which negated any suggestion of an attempt to mislead.

The appellant appealed his conviction and sentence.

The sentence appeal was abandoned.

On the conviction appeal, the appellant argued the trial judge misapprehended the evidence and erred in assessing witness credibility.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the trial judge's credibility assessments and factual findings regarding the physical abuse of the children were fully supported by the record.

The appellant appealed his conviction, arguing the verdict was unreasonable and that the gas company's conduct broke the chain of causation between his tampering with a gas meter and the subsequent explosion.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding ample evidence that the appellant altered the meter and that his actions were a substantial contributing cause of the explosion.

The court also rejected the admission of fresh evidence, finding it immaterial.

The appellant, convicted of first degree murder, sought an order under s. 684(1) of the Criminal Code assigning counsel for his appeal.

He had previously obtained a Legal Aid certificate but had a falling out with his appellate counsel over communication and strategy, leading to counsel's removal from the record.

Legal Aid refused to fund a change of counsel, finding no exceptional circumstances.

The Court of Appeal granted the motion, finding that while the appellant acted unreasonably in his demands of prior counsel, there was no evidence he intentionally precipitated the breakdown for an improper purpose or to abuse the public funding process.

The appellant, who was unrepresented at trial, appealed his conviction on the grounds that he did not receive a fair trial because he misunderstood the concept of wilful blindness and the evidentiary nature of disclosure material.

He also argued the trial judge applied an objective standard to wilful blindness.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the appellant understood wilful blindness, the confusion over disclosure did not impact the trial's fairness, and the trial judge did not err in applying the wilful blindness doctrine given the overwhelming nature of the Crown's case.

The appellant appealed the dismissal of its application for a prescriptive easement over the respondents' parking spaces.

The Court of Appeal upheld the application judge's finding that the appellant's affidavit evidence failed to establish 20 years of continuous use prior to the property's transfer to the land titles system in 2002, as it did not comply with Rule 39.01(5).

Furthermore, the Court agreed that the use of the parking spaces was a matter of mutual convenience rather than 'as of right'.

The appeal was dismissed with costs awarded to the respondents.

The parties separated after a 19-year marriage.

The wife brought a motion to strike the husband's pleadings, alleging he wilfully breached multiple court orders requiring financial disclosure.

The motion judge granted the motion, struck the husband's pleadings, and ordered an uncontested trial.

The husband appealed.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding the motion judge made palpable and overriding errors by characterizing the husband's disclosure as merely 'token' and ignoring evidence of substantial compliance.

The Court reaffirmed that striking pleadings is a drastic remedy of last resort in family law cases.

The appellant appealed a motion judge's order dismissing her action for delay under Rule 24.

The action, commenced in 2002, was dismissed in 2013 for failure to restore it to the trial list.

The Court of Appeal upheld the dismissal, finding that the appellant failed to adequately explain the lengthy delay or rebut the presumption of prejudice.

The appeal was dismissed, and leave to appeal costs was refused.

Following the dismissal of the foreign tobacco defendants' jurisdictional appeals, the Court of Appeal determined the costs of the appeals.

The appellants argued that costs should be capped at $100,000, asserting that the Crown treated the five appeals as one by filing a common factum.

The Court rejected this argument, finding no $100,000 ceiling exists for costs awards in the Court of Appeal.

Given the complexity, the $50 billion stakes, and the necessity of responding to five separate appeals, the Court fixed the Crown's partial indemnity costs at $237,332.50, apportioned between the BAT and RJR appellants.

The appellant appealed an order dismissing her motion to set aside a judgment from an undefended matrimonial trial.

The appellant's pleadings had been struck due to her continuing contempt of court orders requiring financial disclosure.

The Court of Appeal found that the respondent was entitled to proceed with the undefended trial because the appellant failed to purge her contempt or reinstate her pleadings by the court-ordered deadline.

The appeal was dismissed with costs awarded to the respondent.

The appellant challenged a summary judgment dismissing its claim for alleged breaches of non-competition and non-solicitation obligations by former employees and a competing entity.

The Court of Appeal held that the evidentiary record advanced by the appellant consisted of bald allegations and a small number of suspicious incidents that were fully explained by the respondents.

Because the appellant did not cross-examine or otherwise meaningfully challenge those explanations, there were no genuine issues requiring a trial.

The court held the full appreciation test was satisfied without a trial and dismissed the appeal, with fixed costs to the respondents.

The appellant, a police officer convicted of assault causing bodily harm, fabricating evidence, and obstructing justice, applied for bail pending appeal.

The convictions stemmed from an incident where the appellant violently assaulted a civilian, which was captured on video.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the application, finding the appeal to be frivolous given the overwhelming video evidence that contradicted the appellant's version of events.

The court also held that the public interest in maintaining confidence in the administration of justice strongly favoured enforceability of the sentence.

The appellant, who was found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder, appealed an Ontario Review Board (ORB) disposition ordering his detention at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH).

The appellant argued that CAMH's request for an early review of his previous conditional discharge was an abuse of process, and that the ORB erred in finding he posed a significant threat to public safety and in imposing a detention order.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the early review was permitted under the Criminal Code, the ORB applied the correct legal test, and the detention order was the least onerous disposition necessary to ensure CAMH had adequate control over the appellant's housing in the community.

The appellant, convicted of second degree murder and other offences, applied for an order under s. 684 of the Criminal Code appointing counsel for his appeal.

The appellant was indigent and had been denied legal aid.

The court dismissed the application, finding that the appellant failed to establish any arguable grounds of appeal.

The evidence against the appellant at trial, including DNA and video surveillance, was overwhelming, and the proposed grounds regarding expert evidence, jury instructions, and the defence of provocation lacked merit.

The appellant challenged summary judgment enforcing a disciplinary costs award made by a securities self-regulatory organization after professional misconduct proceedings.

The issue was whether the organization could sue a former member in breach of contract to recover the unpaid costs award, and whether s. 9 of the Recognition Order barred that remedy by treating costs like fines or settlements.

The court held that prior authority recognizing contractual enforcement of disciplinary sanctions applied equally to costs awards, and that the plain wording of s. 9 was limited to fines and settlements.

The appeal was dismissed and appeal costs were awarded to the respondent.

The appellant challenged an order dismissing his action as an abuse of process on the basis that it constituted a collateral attack on prior mortgage proceedings.

The Court of Appeal applied the deferential standard governing appellate review of discretionary process-control orders and held that no misdirection or clearly wrong result had been shown.

The court found the appellant's real complaint concerned alleged accounting and payment issues that could have been raised during the mortgage proceedings, and noted that a statutory assessment remedy under the Mortgages Act had been initiated but adjourned.

The appeal was dismissed with costs to the respondents.

The appellants, medical residents, sued the university and several individuals in contract and tort after being dismissed or not promoted in their programs.

The motion judge struck their statement of claim as an abuse of process, finding it was an attempt to relitigate facts already determined through the university's internal academic appeal process and upheld on judicial review.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, confirming that the abuse of process doctrine applies to prevent relitigation of issues determined in administrative proceedings where the process directly affected the appellants' academic and professional standing.

The appellants appealed an order dismissing their motion for partial summary judgment in an Ontario action seeking to enforce German submissions to compulsory enforcement arising from guarantees of bank loans.

The central issue was whether those instruments were foreign judgments for Ontario limitations purposes or were governed by German substantive law under conflict of laws principles.

The court held the instruments were not German judgments and that German law supplied the applicable 30-year limitation period, with the result that the claims were not statute-barred.

The court also rejected the argument that the motion judge had recast the pleadings and dismissed the motion to admit fresh evidence.