CITATION: Parent v. Simpson, 2025 ONSC 1322
DIVISIONAL COURT FILE NO. DC-24-77 & DC-24-96
DATE: 2025-02-27
SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE – ONTARIO
DIVISIONAL COURT
RE: JESSICA PARENT, Appellant
AND:
MICHELLE CRISPE, CHANTELLE SIMPSON, Respondents
BEFORE: Justice E. ten Cate
COUNSEL: Appellant, Self-represented
Respondents, Latania Dyer, Counsel
HEARD: February 20, 2025
REASONS ON MOTION
Introduction
[1] The Appellant appeals from the order of the Landlord and Tenant Board (“LTB”) dated August 6, 2024, terminating her tenancy pursuant to s. 69 of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006, S.O. 2006 c. 17. As a result of that order, the Appellant was required to vacate her rental unit by August 23, 2024.[^1]
[2] The Respondents bring a motion to quash her appeal pursuant to s. 134(3) of the Courts of Justice Act[^2]. They submit her appeal is devoid of merit and an abuse of process.
Procedural History
[3] On August 7, 2024, the Appellant requested an internal review of the tribunal’s decision claiming procedural unfairness and errors in the LTB’s findings. On August 8, 2024, the review was denied, and the original eviction order confirmed.[^3]
[4] On August 9, 2024, the appellant appealed the LTB decision to Divisional Court.
[5] On August 12, 2024, an “automatic” stay of the LTB order dated August 6, 2024, was granted by the Registrar of this court pending the appeal pursuant to Rule 63.01(3) of the Rules of Civil Procedure.[^4]
[6] On September 5, 2024, the appellant filed an application with the Divisional Court for judicial review of the LTB decision.
[7] On September 27, 2024, Tranquilli J. conducted a case conference in which she imposed a timetable for the delivery of materials and ordered that the appellant pay full rent as it falls due on the first of each month as a condition of the automatic stay remaining in effect. (The Appellant continues to pay the rent and is not in arrears.)
[8] On October 1, 2024, the respondent landlords brought a motion to quash the appeal and for an order declaring the appellant a vexatious litigant pursuant to section 140 of the Courts of Justice Act.
[9] On October 18, 2024, the appellant brought two separate motions before this court to: (1) stay her eviction from the order of the LTB pending the outcome of her judicial review application; and (2) declare the respondents’ counsel a vexatious litigant and disbar her.
[10] Through inadvertence, the Respondents failed to confirm their motion in time for the hearing on December 11, 2024.
[11] On December 18, 2024, I dismissed both Appellant’s motions and ordered that the LTB order may be enforced, but no earlier than March 1, 2025, to permit the re-scheduling of the Respondents’ motion. I also ordered the Appellant to pay costs of $1,500.
[12] The Appellant moved at the Court of Appeal to vary or set aside two case management orders of Tranquilli J. relating to the proceedings in the Divisional Court, and my order dated December 18, 2024, seeking a stay of the eviction order pending disposition of the judicial review application.
[13] On January 29, 2025, Zarnett J.A. dismissed the Appellant’s motion[^5] and declined to consider the Appellant’s request for directions citing Bernard Property Maintenance v. Taylor[^6] which states that the proper procedure to set aside or vary a decision of a single judge of the Divisional Court is a motion pursuant to s. 21(5) of the Courts of Justice Act to a panel of the Divisional Court.
[14] The Appellant has not perfected her appeal to the Divisional Court and has not ordered the transcript from the hearing before the LTB.
Motion to Quash Appeal
[15] The parties agree that section 210(1) of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2003[^7] provides that any person affected by an order of the LTB may appeal to the Divisional Court, but only on questions of law. They also agree that appellate standard of review is correctness.[^8]
[16] The Respondents take the position that the Appellant’s Notice of Appeal raises no genuine questions of law; the Appellant is simply attempting to relitigate her dispute with her landlords. They rely upon Renee v. 10887609 Canada Inc.[^9] in which the court found that where an appeal was filed from an LTB decision with the sole purpose of obtaining an automatic stay or delaying the execution of a lawful order, the appeal should be quashed.
[17] The Appellant submits that the LTB made an error of law when it failed to ground its decision in the law of “tortious nuisance” and states that the concept of “harassment” was improperly imported into the analysis from the human rights context. She describes this as a “severe” error of law.
[18] The LTB decision was authored by Member B. Seigel who found that the Respondent’s (Landlord’s) lawful rights, privileges and interests were substantially interfered with by the Appellant (Tenant) both due to the “excessive volume of emails” sent by the Tenant to the Landlords, and by the “inappropriate and offensive content of those emails”.
[19] During the hearing, the Respondents provided a screen capture of a search for e-mails of the Appellant confirming the Appellant sent approximately 305 e-mails to the Respondents between April 1, 2023, and October 5, 2023, the date the notice of termination was served. The Member found:
This is an uncommonly large number of communications to be sent from a tenant to a landlord. While there could be circumstances where this number of communications may be warranted between a landlord and a tenant and would not constitute communication a person ought to know were unwelcome, I do not find that this was the case here. I was shown examples of communications sent by the Tenant that were unnecessary, and in some cases offensive.[^10]
[20] The Member cited several examples of offensive e-mails, including an email dated September 25, 2023, at 10:55 p.m. which contained a screenshot of a conversation between a third party and the Appellant from a message that contained a picture of an erect penis and contained other explicitly sexual language. Chantelle Simpson, one of the Respondents, testified that this email was sent in response to her request to the Appellant to stop emailing her about matters unrelated to the tenancy, and that it felt like harassment.
[21] In response, the Appellant testified that she sent the impugned e-mail because she was concerned that the third party, who had previously stalked her, was someone known to the Respondents and wanted the information. At paragraph 15, the Member found as follows:
While the Tenant’s explanation for sending this sexually explicit conversation was that it contained a phone number for that third party in order to help the Landlord to identify that person, this explanation is not a reasonable explanation for sending sexually explicit material to one’s landlord. If this was truly the concern of the Tenant, it would have been a simple matter to send an e-mail containing that phone number to the Landlord without sending the sexually explicit material.
[22] The Member also found that the nude photograph continued to remain in many e-mails send to the Respondents by the Appellant, despite the Respondents’ request to stop, because the Appellant continued to send e-mails to the Respondents using the same e-mail chain containing the sexually explicit material.[^11]
[23] To make his determination, the Member relied upon Section 36 of the RTA: “A tenant shall not harass, obstruct, coerce, threaten or interfere with a landlord”. He stated:
While there is no definition of ‘harassment’ in the Act, it is generally held that ‘harassment’ is a course of conduct that a reasonable person knows or ought to know would be unwelcome.[^12]
[24] The Appellant argues that the Member’s analysis is based upon a flawed framework, and that he should have conducted an analysis of tortious nuisance, but she did not refer me to any cases that support her position.
[25] Respondents’ counsel referred me to Mahal v. Medard[^13], which is a very recent case in which the Divisional Court concluded that the landlord had not raised an issue of law on a finding of harassment. In my view, based upon the comments in Mahal, the Appellant has not raised an issue of law on the issue of harassment; the appeal is solely on grounds of fact.
[26] The LTB is a specialized tribunal, and the legislature has clearly limited appeals from its decisions. Part of the reason is to ensure that the process is streamlined, timely and cost efficient.[^14]
[27] In my view, the Appellant’s characterization of the Member’s decision respecting harassment as a question of law is mistaken.
[28] The Member carefully reviewed voluminous e-mail communications from the Appellant to the Respondents and heard the evidence of various witnesses. Based upon the evidence before him, he concluded that the landlord’s position was made out on the balance of probabilities and rejected the Appellant’s position. The Member’s reasons are cogent, and his findings were reasonable and based on the evidence before him. His findings were purely factual.
[29] For these reasons, the appeal is quashed.
Disposition
[30] In my earlier decision dated December 18, 2024, I dismissed the Appellant’s request for a stay with respect to the application for judicial review. I also ordered that the LTB order may be enforced, but no earlier than March 1, 2025, to permit the re-scheduling of the respondents’ motion. Unfortunately, their motion was not heard until February 20, 2025, which permits very little time for the Appellant to vacate the rental unit. I therefore extend the date for eviction to April 1, 2025.
[31] For clarity, pursuant to my order of December 18, 2024, there is no stay of eviction in respect to the judicial review application and the “automatic” stay pending the appeal is now lifted.
Costs
[35] Costs are payable by the Appellant to the Respondent in the amount of $1,500 inclusive of fees, HST and disbursements, forthwith.
Date: February 27, 2025
CITATION: Parent v. Simpson, 2025 ONSC 1322
DIVISIONAL COURT FILE NO.: DC-24-77 & DC-24-96
DATE: 2025-02-27
ONTARIO
SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE – ONTARIO
DIVISIONAL COURT
BETWEEN:
JESSICA PARENT
Appellant
– and –
MICHELLE CRISPE, CHANTELLE SIMPSON
Respondents
reasons on motion
Ten Cate J.
Released: February 27, 2025
[^1]: Crispe v. Parent, 2024 ONLTB 48960.
[^2]: R.S.O. 1990, c. C.43.
[^3]: Crispe v. Parent, 2024 ONLTB 59896.
[^4]: R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 194 made under the Courts of Justice Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. C.43.
[^5]: Murray, Jessica v. Simpson, Chantelle et al., Court File No. COA-25-OM-0008.
[^6]: 2019 ONCA 830, paras. 1-3.
[^7]: S.O. 2006, c. 17.
[^8]: Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65.
[^9]: 2024 ONSC 917.
[^10]: Crispe v. Parent, 2024 ONLTB 48960, at para 7.
[^11]: Crispe v. Parent, 2024 ONLTB 48960, at para. 18.
[^12]: Crispe v. Parent, 2024 ONLTB 48960, at para. 5.
[^13]: 2025 ONSC 29 (Div. Ct.). at para. 40.
[^14]: Zolynsky v. North Shore Farming Company Limited, 2016 ONSC 2838.