Civil Litigation - Plaintiff - ONCA

The appellants commenced an action in 2017 for negligent investigation and malicious prosecution.

After years of delay and failure to comply with a timetable order, the motion judge dismissed the action for delay in 2025.

On appeal, the appellants argued the motion judge erred in finding the delay was intentional and in failing to specifically find prejudice.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that the motion judge's finding of intentional delay was supported by the record and that inordinate delay can itself be prejudicial, with the burden on the appellants to disprove prejudice.

In an addendum to its earlier reasons dismissing the appeal and cross-appeal, the Court of Appeal addressed the calculation of partnership net profits for the purpose of determining the respondent's damages.

The appellants argued that notional income taxes should be deducted from amounts the trial judge ordered included in corporate income, such as diverted wages and personal expenses.

The Court rejected this argument, finding no evidence that taxes were paid on the diverted funds.

However, the Court ordered the appellants to provide Canada Revenue Agency documentation to prove actual income taxes remitted by one of the corporate defendants, which would be deducted from its net income if substantiated.

The appellant, a formerly licensed lawyer, appealed the dismissal of his $15 million action against his former counsel for negligent legal advice and ineffective assistance during contempt proceedings.

The motion judge had dismissed the action under Rule 21.01(3)(d) as frivolous, vexatious, or an abuse of process.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, affirming that the action constituted an impermissible collateral attack on previous contempt findings.

The court also upheld the motion judge's finding regarding the limited scope of the retainer, which did not obligate counsel to adduce the additional evidence the appellant claimed was missing, and concluded that such evidence would not have altered the original contempt finding based on the appellant's collusion with his former client.

Karen Bell appealed the dismissal of her defamation action against Garden River First Nation and two councillors.

The action arose from a Censure Motion passed by the Council, which stated Bell had shared "false information" in a Facebook post.

The motion judge found the statement prima facie defamatory but upheld the defence of justification, concluding the information was indeed false.

The Court of Appeal dismissed Bell's motion to adduce fresh evidence, finding it irrelevant, and affirmed the motion judge's interpretation of the Censure Motion.

The Court agreed that the specific quoted information in Bell's Facebook post was false and misleading, thereby upholding the defence of justification.

The appeal was dismissed.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario heard a motion to quash an appeal regarding the appointment of a litigation administrator.

The moving parties argued that the appointment was an interlocutory order and therefore not appealable to the Court of Appeal.

The responding parties contended that the order became final because it was joined with a final order validating a provisional opt-out form.

The Court found that the appointment of a litigation administrator is an interlocutory order, distinct from decisions made under that authority.

Consequently, the appeal from the order appointing the litigation administrator was quashed, while the appeal concerning the opt-out form remained.

The appellants appealed a trial judgment dismissing their action for negligent misrepresentation, which was found to be statute-barred under the Limitations Act, 2002.

The trial judge also found the action could not succeed on the merits.

The Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge's decision, finding that the appellants, as professional engineers, knew or ought to have known of their claim much earlier than when they filed their statement of claim, despite the respondents' ameliorative efforts and superior expertise.

The court emphasized that an expert report was not necessary for discoverability in these circumstances.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant appealed the summary judgment dismissal of his action against the City of Toronto, which was based on his failure to provide timely notice under s. 42(6) of the City of Toronto Act, 2006, and the absence of a reasonable excuse for the delay.

The Court of Appeal affirmed the motion judge's decision, finding no palpable and overriding errors in her conclusion that the appellant failed to establish a reasonable excuse for the three-year delay in providing notice, despite having sufficient information to investigate earlier.

The Court of Appeal heard motions for leave to intervene from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) and the Income Security Advocacy Centre (ISAC) in a class action appeal concerning the Basic Income Pilot Project.

The CCLA's unopposed motion was granted, allowing it to file a factum and present oral arguments under specific terms.

The ISAC's motion was dismissed without costs because its direct involvement in shaping the factual matrix of the Basic Income Pilot Project, including consultations and advice to participants, made it too closely associated with the potential class members and the underlying factual issues, thus compromising its role as an intervener.

Dara Fresco, the representative plaintiff in a class action, moved to quash two aspects of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce's appeals from a judgment on common issues.

Fresco argued that the issues concerning limitation periods and aggregate damages were only appealable to the Divisional Court with leave, not the Court of Appeal.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the motions to quash, holding that it had jurisdiction over all aspects of the appeals under s. 30(3) of the Class Proceedings Act, 1992, as the determinations on limitations and aggregate damages were part of the judgment on common issues.

The appellant sought to enforce letters of request from a Florida court to obtain documents from the former Ontario lawyers of his ex-wife and daughter for use in a Florida action for parental alienation.

The application judge dismissed the application on public policy grounds, finding it would interfere with solicitor-client privilege and client confidentiality.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that the hearing was procedurally fair and the application judge properly exercised his discretion in refusing to enforce the letters of request because they sought presumptively privileged documents.

The plaintiffs moved for directions regarding motions for leave to file fresh evidence, seeking a sequencing protocol to determine whether the defendants' fresh evidence was protected by litigation privilege before disclosing their own fresh evidence.

The motion judge declined to order the proposed protocol, directing the parties to perfect their appeals and schedule an appeal management conference to determine the procedure.

The motion judge also granted the plaintiffs leave to file an over-length 54-page factum, but ordered them to pay $2,000 in costs for failing to seek permission beforehand.

The plaintiff brought a motion in the Court of Appeal to advance an appeal from a mortgage enforcement action, seeking to set aside a certificate of stay, dismiss the appeal, and obtain a writ of possession.

The defendants had appealed a refusal to set aside a default judgment to the wrong court and improperly obtained a certificate of stay from the registrar.

The motion judge granted the plaintiff's sole shareholder leave to represent the corporation, set aside the improperly issued certificate of stay, and ordered the defendants to perfect their appeal by a fixed date.

Requests for a writ of possession and immediate dismissal of the appeal were denied.

The appellant landlord appealed a summary judgment finding it liable for injuries sustained by the respondent motorcyclist, who collided with donkeys that had escaped from the appellant's tenanted property.

The motion judge found the landlord negligent for failing to inspect or repair fences and for permitting an unlocked gate.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal upheld the liability finding, noting the landlord had admitted responsibility for the condition of the fence.

However, the Court found the motion judge erred by granting judgment without determining the issue of contributory negligence.

The appeal was allowed in part, and the issue of contributory negligence was remitted to trial along with damages.

The appellant, as representative plaintiff in a class action on behalf of approximately 4,500 former students of three provincial schools for the Deaf, appealed from a motion judge's order approving class counsel's legal fees subject to conditions.

The class action involved allegations of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, and resulted in a $15 million settlement.

The motion judge approved fees of $3.75 million (25% of the settlement) but imposed conditions requiring class counsel to donate $1.5 million to a charity for the Deaf and made the remaining fees subject to proportionate reduction based on settlement fund reversion.

The Court of Appeal found the motion judge erred in unilaterally imposing the charitable donation condition without party consent, as this altered the negotiated settlement agreement.

The court set aside the order and remitted the matter for a new hearing before a different judge.

The appellants' income property was substantially damaged by fire.

They decided to demolish the site and build an eight-and-a-half-storey condominium, claiming replacement cost and building code upgrades under their insurance policy.

The insurer paid only the actual cash value, arguing the condominium was not a 'replacement' of 'like kind and quality'.

The Court of Appeal upheld the motion judge's decision, finding that the plain and ordinary meaning of the policy required any replacement to be of like kind and quality to trigger replacement cost coverage.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant sought to certify a global class action against an Ontario accounting firm for auditor's negligence regarding a clean audit report used in a US private placement.

The motion judge denied certification, finding no real and substantial connection to Ontario for the foreign investors and concluding that joinder was preferable to a class proceeding.

The Divisional Court upheld this decision.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, holding that the motion judge erred by mischaracterizing the claim as being about the foreign financing rather than the Ontario-based audit, and by failing to properly conduct the comparative access to justice analysis required for the preferable procedure criterion.

The action was certified as a class proceeding.

The appellants appealed the dismissal of their action.

The motion judge had dismissed the action because the appellants were attempting to re-litigate issues that had previously been litigated or could have been litigated in a prior proceeding against the respondent bank.

The Court of Appeal agreed that the action was frivolous, vexatious, and an abuse of process, and dismissed the appeal.

A fire broke out in the appellants' garage while their son, the respondent, was working on his car.

The appellants' home insurer paid for the property damage and brought a subrogated action against the respondent's automobile insurer.

The trial judge dismissed the subrogated claim on the basis that the respondent was an unnamed insured under the homeowner's policy, and an insurer cannot subrogate against its own insured.

The Court of Appeal upheld the decision, finding that the respondent fell within the policy's definition of an insured, had an insurable interest in the property based on the factual expectancy test, and that policy reasons strongly militated against allowing an insurer to sue its own insured.

The appellant appealed a summary judgment granted to the respondent bank based on her default under a mortgage on a condominium property.

The appellant had stopped making principal, interest, and common element fee payments.

The appellant raised defences including that her name had been expropriated and that she was a tenant rather than an owner.

The Court of Appeal found no genuine issue requiring a trial and dismissed the appeal, awarding costs to the respondent.

The appellants abandoned their appeal and advised the court the day before the hearing.

Counsel appeared to argue costs.

The Court of Appeal awarded $3,000 in costs to the respondent for the abandoned appeal, and $500 to the appellants for the appearance, noting the issue should have been resolved.