Court of Appeal for Ontario

Date: 2025-07-21
Docket: M56127 (COA-25-OM-0238)
Judge: Peter Lauwers (Motions Judge)

Between

Jennifer Ricketts
Appellant/Applicant (Appellant/Moving Party)

and

Sureshkumar Veerisingnam, Komathini Sureshkumar, and Landlord and Tenant Board**
Respondents (Respondents/Responding Parties*)

Appearances:
Alyn James Johnson, for the appellant/moving party
Sureshkumar Veerisingnam [1] and Komathini Sureshkumar, acting in person

Heard: July 17, 2025

Endorsement

Background

[1] Ms. Ricketts occupies a residence owned by the responding parties. They seek to terminate her tenancy and take possession of it for their personal use, to house Ms. Sureshkumar’s elderly mother. Her mother, in her 80’s, is sharing a room with her daughter, who is 13 years old. Ms. Ricketts is infirm and lacks funds; she has not been able to find affordable alternative accommodation.

[2] The Landlord and Tenant Board (“LTB”) issued orders terminating Ms. Ricketts’ tenancy and evicting her, and rejected her motion to reconsider. The Divisional Court, in a split decision, dismissed Ms. Ricketts’ application for judicial review and her appeal, with reasons reported at 2025 ONSC 841. The dissent took the position that the result before the LTB might well have been tainted by the ineffective assistance of Ms. Ricketts’ counsel, a paralegal.

The Divisional Court’s Reasoning

[3] The differences between the majority and the dissent were stated by Corbett J., speaking for himself and Newton J.:

[55] Third, my colleague [Nakatsura J.] would decide, not just for this case, but as a precedent for future cases, that ineffective assistance should apply as a defence in LTB proceedings. He would decide that when the issue was not raised below, and so without the benefit of (and the deference that should be afforded to) an LTB decision on this issue. In my view this is overreach by this court that may have significant implications for future LTB proceedings. If I had concluded that the Appellant had raised a proper basis for pursuing an argument of ineffective assistance below, I would have returned this matter to the LTB for Reconsideration so that the LTB could decide the issue at first instance.

[56] I appreciate that the particulars of the “ineffective assistance” in this case are shocking on the record before this court. It will be a rare day, one would hope, that a licensed legal professional would disobey their client’s clear and direct instructions. But the principle invoked is broader than the particulars of the case at bar. If this policy issue had to be answered in this case I would answer with an unequivocal “no” and would conclude, as the Court of Appeal did in another context (quoted above), that:

[a]lthough there may be some cases in which the nature of the claim gives rise to a public interest that transcends the private interests of the litigants and allows for ineffective assistance of counsel as a ground of appeal, this is clearly not such a case.

Had I concluded otherwise, I would have left it to the LTB to wrestle with the competing interests and policy questions at first instance, rather than deciding them at first instance in this court.

Motion for Stay

[4] Ms. Ricketts brought a motion for leave to appeal to this court. She seeks an order staying the following orders of the LTB pending the hearing of her motion for leave to appeal, and, if leave is granted, pending the hearing and final disposition of her appeal:

• (a) The order of LTB member Curtis Begg, dated January 3, 2024, in LTB file LTB-L-062686-22, terminating Ms. Ricketts’ tenancy; and
• (b) The order of LTB member Amanda Kovats, dated January 25, 2024, in LTB file LTB-L-062686-22-RV, confirming the eviction order.

The Test for a Stay

[5] RJR - MacDonald Inc. v. Canada (Attorney General), [1994] 1 S.C.R. 311, [1994] S.C.J. No. 17, at para. 43, sets out the well-established test for a stay. The overarching consideration is whether the justice of the case warrants the stay. Informing this consideration are the following factors: (1) Is there a serious issue to be adjudicated on the appeal; (2) will the moving party suffer irreparable harm if the stay is not granted; and (3) the balance of convenience.

Analysis and Decision

[6] There is plainly a serious issue to be adjudicated, as evidenced by the contending positions of the majority and the dissent in the Divisional Court. Ms. Ricketts might suffer irreparable harm in being forced from her residence, while the responding parties will be required, by contrast, to continue to live in longstanding conditions. I do not doubt the stress and the distress that the responding parties are experiencing, but the balance of convenience favours Ms. Ricketts.

[7] It is not my role as a single judge to render moot Ms. Ricketts’ motion for leave to appeal. I therefore grant the stay requested.

[8] Accordingly, I order that the eviction order terminating Ms. Ricketts’ tenancy dated January 3, 2024, in LTB file LTB-L-062686-22; the order confirming the eviction order dated January 25, 2024, in LTB file LTB-L-062686-22-RV; and the Divisional Court’s order be stayed until the moving party’s motion for leave to appeal is determined and, if leave to appeal is granted, until the appeal is determined. I make no order as to costs.

“P. Lauwers J.A.”

Note

[1] Mr. Veerisingam’s name is spelled in various ways in the documents on record and pleadings. No offence is intended if the incorrect spelling has been used in these reasons.