Civil Litigation - Plaintiff - ONCA

The appellant purchaser appealed a summary judgment dismissing his action for the return of a $100,000 deposit on a real estate transaction.

The property's depth was significantly less than described in the Agreement of Purchase and Sale.

The respondent vendor had manually added 'To be verified' next to the depth dimension.

The motion judge found this proviso shifted the risk of inaccuracy to the purchaser.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, holding that the proviso did not impose a pre-contractual obligation on the purchaser to verify dimensions, nor did it transfer the risk or negate the 'more or less' clause.

The deposit was ordered returned to the appellant.

A mortgage broker appealed the dismissal of its negligence claim against the Crown arising from fraud perpetrated by an individual who filed a fraudulent notice of change with the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services, falsely identifying himself as a director and officer of a corporation.

The appellant relied on a corporation profile report obtained from the Ministry when advancing $1.8 million in loans.

The Court of Appeal upheld the dismissal, finding that no duty of care arose at the first stage of the Anns/Cooper test.

The governing legislation did not contemplate a private law duty of care, and the payment of a fee for access to public corporate records was insufficient to establish proximity.

The appellant sought to appeal the dismissal of his summary judgment motion regarding fraudulent conveyances.

The motion judge had dismissed the motion on the basis that the underlying debt was discharged in bankruptcy and the appellant had failed to follow the correct procedure under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act.

The Court of Appeal quashed the appeal, finding that the motion judge's order was interlocutory because it did not determine the substantive rights of the parties.

Therefore, the appeal properly lies to the Divisional Court with leave.

The appellant electrical contractor appealed the dismissal of its action against the respondent regional municipality.

The appellant alleged the municipality breached its procurement bylaws by engaging in contract-splitting to award work to a competitor.

The Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge's findings that the municipality's task-oriented approach did not violate the bylaws and that there was no evidence of unfair treatment or contract-splitting.

Furthermore, the appellant failed to prove any damages.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant municipality appealed a summary judgment finding it owed a duty of care to a class of tenants to provide statutory notices of rent reductions following property tax decreases.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that the municipality's specific interactions with the tenants through a pilot project created sufficient relational proximity to establish a prima facie duty of care.

The court further found no residual policy reasons to negate this duty, as the claim was limited to a specific group and did not conflict with the municipality's statutory obligations.

The municipality's failure to send the required notices breached the standard of care.

Following a successful appeal, the appellant sought its trial costs.

The parties agreed on most amounts but disputed a $32,025 disbursement for environmental assessment reports prepared prior to the litigation for the purpose of a possible property acquisition.

The Court of Appeal denied the disbursement, holding that the reports were not commissioned in contemplation of litigation and their use at trial did not alter their nature as non-litigation work product.

Trial costs were fixed at $237,364.86.

The respondents sued the appellant for $580,000 paid pursuant to an oral contract for temporary foreign worker employment positions, alleging the contracts were fraudulent.

The appellant counterclaimed for $170,000 and pleaded equitable set-off.

The motion judge struck the defence of set-off.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding the motion judge failed to apply the Telford factors for equitable set-off and that the appellant's claim was proper given the close connection between the parties' claims.

The appellant employer appealed a trial judge's finding that the respondent employee had adequately mitigated his damages following wrongful termination.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the trial judge's decision was well supported by the evidence.

The respondent, who was in his fifties with limited education and had worked for the appellant for 19 years, faced diminished re-employment prospects, exacerbated by the lack of a reference letter and accusations of wrongdoing.

The Court held that the respondent made reasonable efforts to find comparable employment and was not obliged to accept non-comparable positions.

The appellant sold his print services business to the respondents, who subsequently stopped making payments on the promissory note, leaving a balance of $94,600.

The appellant brought an application for judgment, which the application judge dismissed upon finding the appellant made a fraudulent misrepresentation regarding the value of the business equipment.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding the evidence fell short of establishing fraudulent misrepresentation, and ordered the matter to proceed to trial due to the numerous factual disputes.

The appellant appealed an order dismissing his civil wrongful-conviction action as an abuse of process and alternatively staying it under s. 106 of the Courts of Justice Act.

The action alleged negligence, misfeasance, malicious prosecution, conspiracy, misrepresentation, and Charter breaches arising from the non-disclosure of potentially exculpatory alibi evidence in a murder prosecution.

The court held that the prior criminal reference did not determine all issues raised in the civil action and was not intended to bind future proceedings after the conviction was quashed and a new trial ordered.

The motion judge also erred in relying on delay and changed positions by the appellant to justify a stay.

The appeal was allowed and the dismissal and stay orders were set aside.

The appellant challenged an order requiring him to execute transfers of certificates of possession over reserve parcels to satisfy a judgment debt owed to the respondent band.

The appeal turned on whether the Superior Court had jurisdiction to make that order and whether certificates of possession were immune from seizure under s. 29 of the Indian Act.

The court held that a certificate of possession merely evidences an Indian's right of possession, while underlying title to reserve land remains with the Crown.

Reading ss. 29 and 89(1) harmoniously and in light of the statutory scheme and legislative history, the court held that the possessory interest is real or personal property of an Indian that may be seized or executed upon in favour of an Indian or a band.

The appeal was dismissed and appeal costs were added to the debt.

The applicant brought a motion to review an order of a single judge of the Court of Appeal, which had dismissed his motion to set aside the Registrar's dismissal of his appeal for delay.

The underlying action was a claim for damages against the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario regarding its investigation of a complaint against his former physician, which had been struck for disclosing no reasonable cause of action.

The Court of Appeal found no reason to interfere with the single judge's decision, agreeing that the appeal had no merit.

The motion for review was dismissed with costs.

The appellants appealed an order granting an injunction.

The Court of Appeal found that the appellants presented a plausible explanation for their failure to file materials in Hamilton, thereby meeting the second branch of the Lenskis test.

The appeal was allowed, and the injunction and the lower court's order were set aside.

The appellant, an immigration consultant, sued a Korean-language newspaper and its reporter for libel over an article concerning a scheme that left South Korean truck drivers stranded in Canada.

At trial, the jury found that the article did not defame the appellant.

The appellant appealed, arguing the verdict was perverse.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that the jury's verdict was not so plainly unreasonable and unjust that no jury acting judicially could have reached it, as it was open to the jury to conclude that the ordinary reader would not understand the article to discredit the appellant.

The appellant farmer appealed a trial judgment awarding damages to the respondent grain elevator for breach of several agricultural futures contracts.

The appellant argued that the parties had a single overall business arrangement, that they had mutually agreed to terminate all dealings, and that the respondent failed to mitigate its damages after the appellant's anticipatory repudiation.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the contracts were independent, no termination agreement existed, and the respondent acted reasonably by waiting until the contractual delivery dates to calculate its losses in accordance with the contracts' valuation provisions.

The cross-appellants (the sellers) appealed a trial judgment finding them liable for negligent misrepresentation regarding the value of business inventory sold to the respondents (the buyers).

The trial judge had awarded damages to the buyers but reduced the award by 20 percent due to contributory negligence.

On appeal, the sellers argued the buyers did not reasonably rely on the misrepresentation and suffered no detriment, while the buyers argued the finding of contributory negligence was inconsistent with reasonable reliance.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that the trial judge's findings of reasonable reliance, detriment, and contributory negligence were supported by the evidence and could co-exist.

The appellant appealed a motion judge's decision striking out his statement of claim for failing to disclose a reasonable cause of action and dismissing his motion for leave to amend.

The appellant argued he should be allowed to amend his claim to assert negligence against the respondent bank as a guarantor or surety of the corporation's obligations.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no lis between the appellant and the bank because his obligations were to third parties, not the bank.

Furthermore, the court agreed that the appellant's potential claim was derivative of the corporation's claim and could only be asserted by the corporation.

The appellant moved to amend its statement of claim after the expiry of the limitation period to add its parent corporation as a plaintiff, arguing misnomer.

The Master and Divisional Court dismissed the motion, finding it was an attempt to add a new party rather than correct a misnomer.

The Court of Appeal upheld the decision, confirming it was not a misnomer and reaffirming that the special circumstances doctrine did not survive the enactment of the Limitations Act, 2002.

The appellant challenged both the trial judgment and the costs award arising from a dispute concerning consideration for shares and obligations under minutes of settlement.

The Court of Appeal rejected the attack on the trial judge’s factual findings, holding there was evidence to support the impugned findings.

However, it held the trial judge erred in principle in awarding solicitor-client costs because the pleadings, while strongly worded, did not amount to fraud or dishonest conduct warranting elevated costs and were not pursued unreasonably.

Leave to appeal costs was granted, the appeal on costs was allowed, and party-party costs were substituted, with the respondent recovering 90 percent of the costs of the appeal.

The appellant appealed the dismissal of an action against a judge arising from conduct alleged to have occurred while hearing and deciding the appellant's earlier civil proceeding.

The Court of Appeal held that the pleaded allegations concerned acts done in the execution of judicial duties and therefore could not found a valid cause of action.

The court further held that the respondent's response to a complaint to the Canadian Judicial Council was also undertaken in the course of judicial office.

The appeal was dismissed with costs.