Civil Litigation - Plaintiff - OCJ

The accused, Jing Wen Shi, was charged with failing to provide the necessities of life to her newborn baby, contrary to section 215(2)(a)(ii) of the Criminal Code, after giving birth alone at home.

The Crown alleged she knew of the pregnancy and purposely neglected the baby.

The defence argued she was unaware of the pregnancy until labour and was physically incapacitated by shock and blood loss.

The court found reasonable doubt regarding her prior knowledge of pregnancy and her physical capacity to act, concluding that her actions did not amount to a marked departure from the standard of care of a reasonably prudent parent in the circumstances.

The accused was found not guilty.

The applicant, the mother of a deceased young person, applied for access to police records relating to her son under the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA).

The records were sought for use in a civil lawsuit against the police regarding the circumstances of the young person's death following a police pursuit.

The court found that the materials constituted records under the YCJA, waived the notice requirement because the young person was deceased, and granted access, finding the applicant had a valid and substantial interest and access was necessary for the proper administration of justice.

Strict conditions were imposed on the use and disclosure of the records.

The applicants in the main proceeding sought access to youth criminal records related to a sexual assault investigation for use in a civil action.

The Attorney General and the Chief of Police brought a preliminary motion seeking release of the records to them to determine if other young persons, such as witnesses or victims, should be given notice of the application due to privacy interests.

The court dismissed the motion, holding that the Youth Criminal Justice Act's statutory scheme for access to records does not require notice to witnesses, and the court cannot effectively amend the legislation to create a new notice provision.

The accused was charged with impaired operation of a vessel causing death, operating a vessel with over 80 milligrams of alcohol in blood causing death, dangerous operation of a vessel causing death, and criminal negligence causing death.

The charges arose from an incident on April 7, 2017, when the accused took an eight-year-old child canoeing on the Muskoka River during spring run-off with dangerous water conditions.

The canoe capsized, and the child drowned.

The court found the accused's blood alcohol concentration was between 128 to 170 milligrams per 100 millilitres of blood, and he had recently consumed cannabis.

The court held that a canoe constitutes a "vessel" under the Criminal Code and convicted the accused on all charges, finding his decision to canoe to a yellow warning barrier to retrieve a blue barrel in dangerous conditions, while impaired, constituted a marked and substantial departure from reasonable conduct demonstrating wanton and reckless disregard for the child's safety.

The accused was charged with dangerous driving causing death and bodily harm, as well as criminal negligence causing death and bodily harm, arising from a motor vehicle collision on June 18, 2017.

Following a confrontation at a quarry where the accused was threatened, he fled in a vehicle with three young women as passengers.

While driving at speeds up to 183 km/h on an 80 km/h rural highway, he ignored repeated pleas from his passengers to slow down.

The vehicle crashed 2.7 km from the quarry, killing two passengers and injuring a third.

The court found the accused guilty of all charges, rejecting his argument that his conduct was justified by a reasonable belief in imminent peril, as the threat had passed and he had been informed by his passengers that no one was following them.

The accused pleaded guilty to criminal negligence causing the death of a two-year-old child who was left in a hot vehicle at an unlicensed daycare facility.

The accused operated an illegal daycare with 35 children, seven times the legal capacity, despite a prior warning from the Ministry of Education.

The child died of hyperthermia after being forgotten in the vehicle for several hours.

The accused misrepresented the cause of death to emergency responders and parents, and evidence was subsequently destroyed.

The court imposed a custodial sentence of 22 months followed by three years probation with strict conditions.

The accused was charged with two counts of criminal negligence causing death and two counts of criminal negligence causing bodily harm arising from a motor vehicle collision at a Costco store parking lot in London, Ontario.

The vehicle, operated in reverse, travelled approximately 59 meters across the parking lot and crashed through the front entrance of the store, resulting in the deaths of two individuals (including a newborn) and injuries to two others.

The accused claimed her foot became caught under the brake pedal while she was unable to apply the brakes.

The court rejected this explanation as physically impossible based on the vehicle's pedal configuration and the accused's shoe dimensions.

The court found the accused guilty of the lesser included offence of dangerous driving rather than criminal negligence, distinguishing the case based on the absence of wanton or reckless disregard required for the more serious charge.

The accused was charged with manslaughter in connection with the death of Edward Cieslik, who died from heroin overdose.

The Crown alleged that the accused unlawfully procured heroin for the deceased, divided it into doses, and injected him with one dose, causing his death.

The trial examined whether the accused's actions constituted unlawful act manslaughter or criminal negligence.

The court found that while the accused did traffic in heroin and inject the deceased once, the deceased's voluntary self-administration of a fatal second dose constituted an intervening act that severed the causal chain between the accused's conduct and the death.

The court applied the principle from R. v. Kennedy, finding that the autonomous decision of an informed adult to self-inject a lethal dose breaks legal causation.

The accused was acquitted of manslaughter.

The accused was charged with dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death.

The victim, a 13-year-old girl, was struck and killed by the accused's vehicle while crossing Airport Road in Caledon, Ontario.

The Crown alleged the accused was speeding; the defence argued the victim's unexpected entry into traffic made the collision inevitable and that the accused's speed did not constitute dangerous driving.

The court found the accused was travelling at 152 KPH in a 50 KPH zone near a residential area and village entrance on a day when pedestrian traffic was reasonably foreseeable.

The court convicted the accused of dangerous driving causing death, finding both actus reus and mens rea established, and that causation was proven despite the victim's unexpected action.

The applicants sought revocation of two restraint orders issued under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and return of property proceeds held by the Seized Property Management Directorate Branch.

The Crown had previously dismissed its forfeiture application after over 35 days of hearings, finding no evidence of complicity or collusion on the part of the applicants.

The court granted the application, ordering revocation of the restraint orders and distribution of the remaining proceeds pursuant to a consent order among the interested parties.

The court rejected the Crown's request for a 90-day adjournment to allow the Civil Remedies Office to investigate whether to commence separate proceedings, finding such a referral constituted an abuse of process and an attempt to relitigate issues already determined.

Following the dismissal of an appeal regarding a municipal election compliance audit, the added parties (the candidates) sought costs against the appellant.

The court rejected the appellant's argument that she was a public interest litigant immune from costs, finding she continued to pursue abandoned and technical allegations on appeal.

The court awarded costs on a partial indemnity basis, fixing them at $12,600 for the three represented candidates and $1,000 for the self-represented candidate.

The accused was charged with dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing bodily harm and failing to stop at the scene of an accident knowing that bodily harm had been caused.

The incident occurred when the accused operated an ATV in a public park in a dangerous manner, performing donuts and driving at high speed through a skateboard park where members of the public were present.

The accused struck a person, causing a fractured femur.

The court found the accused guilty of dangerous driving causing bodily harm but not guilty of the aggravated failure to stop charge, instead finding him guilty of the lesser included offence of simple failure to stop.