ONCA 2024

The moving party, Ms. Guillaume, brought a motion to set aside an order of the Registrar of the Court of Appeal for Ontario that dismissed her motion for leave to appeal for delay.

The underlying appeal concerned a judicial review of a decision by the Animal Care Review Board regarding the removal and care costs of 41 cats.

Ms. Guillaume failed to file acceptable motion materials despite extensions and notices, and provided no explanation for the delay.

The court dismissed her motion, finding no merit in the proposed appeal and concluding that the justice of the case did not favour setting aside the dismissal order.

ID Inc. appealed the dismissal of its claim against StrategyCorp, which arose from a dispute over the transformation of a billboard to a digital sign and a related consulting agreement.

The Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge's findings, concluding that StrategyCorp did not intentionally interfere with ID Inc.'s economic relations, the consulting agreement was conditional on a separate agreement that never materialized, StrategyCorp had repudiated the agreement which ID Inc. accepted by silence, and StrategyCorp did not breach its duty of good faith.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellants appealed a motion judge's order that permanently stayed their action against a law firm (A&B) on the basis that it constituted an abuse of process for not having been added to an existing 'Main Action' involving the same factual circumstances.

The Court of Appeal found that the motion judge erred in concluding that commencing a separate action was an abuse of process, as it is not always abusive to start a new action instead of amending an existing one, especially when distinct claims or privilege concerns are involved.

However, the Court upheld the procedural direction that the claims should proceed in a single action.

The appeal was allowed in part, setting aside the permanent stay and replacing it with a temporary stay, allowing the appellants to bring a motion to add A&B as a defendant to the Main Action, with the ultimate determination of a permanent stay to be made by the motion judge hearing that application.

The appellant appealed his convictions for firearm offences, arguing the trial judge erred in admitting firearm evidence under s. 24(2) of the Charter despite s. 8 and s. 9 breaches.

Police stopped his vehicle for a Highway Traffic Act violation and arrested him based on an Alberta warrant, which was later found to be geographically restricted.

A firearm was discovered during a search incident to arrest.

The trial judge found the police conduct inadvertent and not in bad faith, and that the seriousness of the charges weighed in favour of inclusion.

The Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge's s. 24(2) analysis, deferring to her assessment of police conduct as being on the less serious end of the spectrum and emphasizing the seriousness of the firearm charges.

The appeal was dismissed.

The moving party, Aviva General Insurance Company, sought leave to appeal a Divisional Court decision that found Carrie-Anne Davis suffered an "accident" under the Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule (SABS) after slipping on ice near her car.

The Court of Appeal clarified that the `Sault Dock` framework for leave to appeal remains unchanged, despite recent comments in `West Whitby`.

The Court denied leave, finding the dispute largely fact-specific and that Aviva had not presented an arguable case to change the settled SABS "accident" test.

The appellants, Alex and Maryam Furney, appealed a motion judge's decision granting summary judgment to the respondent, Mohammad Ali Rabbani, for debts owed on promissory notes and a mortgage.

The appellants raised over thirty grounds of appeal, primarily alleging unfairness, errors of law and fact, and an improper costs award.

The Court of Appeal found no reversible error, affirming the motion judge's discretion in refusing an adjournment and her finding that there was no genuine issue for trial.

The appeal was dismissed with costs.

The appellant, convicted of multiple counts of sexual interference and sexual assault against his nieces and great-nieces, appealed his convictions.

The primary grounds of appeal were that the trial judge erred by admitting similar fact evidence without properly considering collusion among complainants and by applying a different standard of scrutiny to the evidence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no reversible error in the trial judge's assessment of collusion, credibility, or the application of similar fact principles.

This endorsement addresses seven motions for leave to intervene in an appeal concerning the constitutionality of provisions of the Security from Trespass and Protecting Food Safety Act, 2020, and its Regulation 701/20, which were found to violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Court of Appeal granted leave to intervene to Animal Alliance, Centre for Free Expression (CFE), Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA), and Labour Issues Coordinating Committee (LICC), finding they offered useful and distinct perspectives without unduly expanding the appeal's scope.

Motions by Justicia for Migrant Workers (J4MW), Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE), and Animal Environmental Legal Advocacy (AEL Advocacy) were dismissed, primarily due to concerns about expanding the issues or duplication of arguments.

This was a motion to quash a notice of appeal filed by Edgar Bray.

The underlying litigation involved a commercial lease, where default judgment was granted against Mr. Bray and Triloq Corp. The moving parties argued that no appeal lies to the Court of Appeal from a default judgment because it is not a final order under s. 6(1)(b) of the Courts of Justice Act.

The court confirmed the interlocutory nature of default judgments, noting that the proper mechanism to challenge such a judgment is a motion to set aside under Rule 19.08 of the Rules of Civil Procedure.

The motion to quash was granted, and the appellant was ordered to pay substantial indemnity costs.

The appellant appealed his convictions for attempted murder, arguing that the trial judge erred in assessing the mens rea required for attempted murder by wrongly attributing the actions of other shooters to him, and that the verdicts on four of the five convictions were unreasonable.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no error in the trial judge's consideration of the appellant's specific intent.

The court held that the evidence amply supported the findings that this was a pre-planned, deliberate attack by shooters working in concert, and that the only reasonable inference was that all shooters had the specific intent to kill the victims.

The appellant, convicted of sexual assault, sought leave to appeal his three-year custodial sentence.

The appeal raised two grounds: that the trial judge erred in relying on R. v. A.J.K. as mandating a minimum three-year sentence for penetration, and that she failed to consider relevant R. v. Friesen factors.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the trial judge did not apply a minimum sentence but rather a fit range, and appropriately considered all relevant sentencing factors, including the seriousness of digital penetration.

The appellant, C.D., appealed his conviction for sexual interference, sexual exploitation, and sexual assault, and his sentence.

The sentence appeal was abandoned during oral submissions.

The conviction appeal raised three issues: the admissibility of prior discreditable conduct (the "shower incident"), the lack of a caution regarding the complainant's prior consistent statement, and the absence of an instruction against cross-count reasoning.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no reversible errors by the trial judge.

The court held that the shower incident evidence was admissible for motive and to rebut defence theories, and that the lack of specific jury instructions was a legitimate tactical decision by defence counsel.

The appellant, D.W., appealed convictions for sexual assault and sexual interference, arguing the trial judge erred by improperly relying on the complainant's lack of embellishment to enhance credibility and by misusing a 2015 Children's Aid Society (CAS) record to rebut an allegation of recent fabrication.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the trial judge's use of the lack of embellishment was permissible to assess motive to lie, and the CAS record was properly admitted as a prior consistent statement to rebut recent fabrication, not for the truth of its contents.

The sentence appeal was abandoned.

The appellant, Starkman Barristers, sought to appeal an interlocutory order from the Superior Court of Justice that referred their accounts for assessment under the Solicitor's Act.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario concluded it lacked jurisdiction over the proposed appeal because the order was interlocutory, not finally determining the real issue between the parties.

The court reiterated that appeals from interlocutory orders lie to the Divisional Court with leave.

The appeal was quashed.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario heard a motion to quash a motion for leave to appeal from a Superior Court decision.

The Superior Court had dismissed an application to review an arbitrator's jurisdiction decision, finding the responding parties had waived their right to object.

The Court of Appeal determined it lacked jurisdiction to hear an appeal from the application judge's order, citing s. 17(9) of the Arbitration Act, 1991, which explicitly states there is no appeal from a court's decision on a preliminary question of an arbitrator's jurisdiction.

The court found the arbitrator's jurisdiction ruling was indeed a preliminary question, despite its timing.

Consequently, the motion for leave to appeal was quashed, and costs were awarded to the moving parties.

This is an appeal from a Superior Court judgment that found the appellants liable for fraudulent misrepresentation and pierced the corporate veil.

The underlying dispute involved a three-way agreement for medical gloves, where the appellants, acting as distributors, failed to deliver a significant portion of goods and misrepresented their "factory direct" relationship with the manufacturer.

The trial judge found the appellants engaged in fraudulent misrepresentation in Canada, leading to the plaintiff's losses, and held the individual principals personally liable.

On appeal, the appellants challenged the application of the corporate veil piercing test, the trial judge's distinction between Canada-based and China-based fraud, and the costs award.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, affirming that fraudulent misrepresentation constitutes "conduct akin to fraud" for piercing the corporate veil, that the trial judge's analysis of distinct frauds was within the pleadings, and that the costs award was a discretionary matter warranting no interference.

The appellant, Seargeant Picard Incorporated (SPI), appealed a "boomerang" summary judgment order that found the respondents' (Saxbergs') action for breach of a construction contract was not statute-barred.

SPI argued the motion judge erred in the discoverability analysis and in granting the boomerang order.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no reversible error in the discoverability analysis, particularly regarding the application of the "appropriate means" test under the Limitations Act, 2002, and upheld the boomerang order given the parties' agreement and the thoroughness of the motion judge's review.

The appellant was convicted of sexual assault and appealed both the conviction and the sentence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding no reversible error in the trial judge's assessment of evidence or consent analysis.

However, the court allowed the sentence appeal, finding that the trial judge erred in dismissing the appellant's s. 11(b) Charter application regarding post-conviction delay.

The court found the delay unreasonable, specifically rejecting the trial judge's characterization of immigration complexity and minor technical issues as exceptional circumstances.

As a remedy for the Charter breach, the conditional sentence was reduced from two years less a day to 20 months, as a conditional discharge was deemed unfit given the serious nature of the offence.

This appeal concerned a dispute between a mother and her daughter and son-in-law over beneficial ownership interests in two residential properties.

The trial judge found that the mother beneficially owned one property via a resulting trust and held a 35.6% interest in the second property.

The appellants argued the trial judge misapprehended evidence regarding intentions for the first property and that there was an apprehension of bias due to the immediate oral judgment for the second.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, affirming the trial judge's findings on resulting trust and property interests, and found no reasonable apprehension of bias, though it noted the immediate oral decision was not best practice.

The appellants challenged the validity of their deceased father's 2021 will and an inter vivos property transfer, alleging lack of testamentary capacity and undue influence by the respondents.

The application judge dismissed their motion for directions, finding they failed to meet the minimal evidentiary threshold under Rule 75.06.

The Court of Appeal upheld this decision, finding no palpable and overriding errors in the application judge's assessment of the evidence regarding capacity or undue influence, nor in his treatment of the evidence or sufficiency of reasons for dismissing the challenge to the property transfer.