Provincial Women’s Softball Association v. Mississauga Majors Baseball Association, 2025 ONSC 2835
CITATION: Provincial Women’s Softball v. Mississauga Majors, 2025 ONSC 2835
DIVISIONAL COURT FILE NO.: DC-24-0084
DATE: 20250512
ONTARIO
SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE
DIVISIONAL COURT
SACHS, McCARTHY and I. SMITH JJ.
BETWEEN:
PROVINCIAL WOMEN’S SOFTBALL ASSOCIATION Appellant
– and –
MISSISSAUGA MAJORS BASEBALL ASSOCIATION Respondent
Michelle Kropp and Donny Jackson, Counsel for the Appellant
Christopher Lee and Elliot Saccucci, Counsel for the Respondent
HEARD: At Brampton on March 4, 2025, by Videoconference
I. SMITH J.:
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT
Introduction
[1] The Mississauga Majors Baseball Association (the “Majors”) applied for membership in the Provincial Women’s Softball Association (the “PWSA”). The Majors’ application was denied by the PWSA on March 21, 2023. The Majors thereafter applied for relief under the Ontario Not-for-Profit Corporations Act, 2010, S.O. 2010, c. 15 (the “Act”).
[2] That application was heard by Chozik J. (the “application judge”), who, in reasons found at 2024 ONSC 4986, concluded that at the time of their application to the PWSA: the Majors met all the criteria for PWSA membership as set out in the PWSA by-laws, those by-laws did not allow the PWSA any discretion to refuse membership to an applicant who met the membership criteria, and the PWSA had therefore failed to apply its own by-laws by denying the Majors’ application. The application judge ordered that the PWSA comply with its own by-laws by granting membership to the Majors.
[3] The PWSA appeals from the decision of the application judge pursuant to s. 192 of the Act.
[4] For the reasons which follow, the appeal is dismissed.
Background
The parties
[5] The Majors, a not-for-profit corporation run by volunteers, offer softball programs for women and girls in Mississauga, Ontario, and have both house league and competitive (or “rep”) teams. The Majors seek membership in the PWSA so that their rep teams can compete at the highest levels in the province.
[6] The PWSA is also a volunteer-operated not-for-profit corporation. It is comprised of local associations and individual teams from around the province. Among other things, the PWSA organizes tournaments for rep teams, including the provincial softball championships.
The relevant provisions of the PWSA by-laws and operating rules
[7] According to its by-laws, the PWSA’s “aims and objectives” include, inter alia, to “improve and promote” women’s softball in the province, to develop the skills of players and coaches, and to “ensure that all participants are treated equally and given the opportunity to achieve their full potential.”
[8] The criteria for PWSA membership are set out in Article 2.1 of the by-laws, which reads in part as follows:
2.1 Categories – The Association has the following categories of members:
(a) Association Membership – Association defined as an entity governed by a Board of Directors, with By-Laws and Policies under which all members are governed. All PWSA affiliated organizations comprising of more than one Team Member who agree to abide by the By-Laws of the Association, as enacted and amended from time to time, will be Association members. Association members have one vote per association.
Note! All Associations affiliated prior to November 2020 will be grandfathered in.
(b) Team Membership – All PWSA affiliated female softball teams who agree to abide by the By-Laws of the Association, as enacted and amended from time to time, will be Team Members, who must be a member of an Affiliated Association. Team Membership is a non-voting class.
[9] Accordingly, the criteria for association membership may be summarized as follows: applicants must be governed by a board of directors, have by-laws and policies, have more than one team member, and agree to abide by the by-laws of the PWSA. Pursuant to the by-laws, these criteria, or “conditions,” may be changed only by a special resolution of all PWSA members. Article 9 refers to such changes as “Fundamental Changes.”
[10] At the time of their application for membership in the PWSA the Majors had a board of directors and by-laws and policies. They agreed to abide by the by-laws of the PWSA. They did not have any member teams, but their application for association membership was based on a proposal that they field more than one team, each of which would be a team member.
[11] In addition to its by-laws, the PWSA also has operating rules, which also address issues of membership. Rule 1.02 provides in part as follows:
Affiliation – Teams desirous of joining the Association (P.W.S.A) may do so by single team affiliation. A single team is defined as any one team not affiliated with an affiliated member softball association. In addition, the new team applying for entry into the Association may not be composed of a group that carries 2/3 of a member club in good standing from the previous playing season. Single team entries as of 2020 playing season are grandfathered into the Association (P.W.S.A) provided they remain in good standing. Exceptions to this rule can be made by review of a special P.W.S.A. approval committee made up of P.W.S.A. board members and neighboring Affiliated member association presidents.
(1) Any team associated, or part of an Association, must play their home games in the District their association is based.
(2) Any team associated with an association that would like to schedule a practice or game in another district occupied by another association would have to ask permission to schedule any games or practices in the district or defined area.
(3) Any single team associations would have to follow the same rules as listed above and be denied access to any district they were not based out of without obtaining permission from a pre-existing single team or multiple team association.
(4) Any team or association found in violation of this policy would be subject to disciplinary action, and immediately cancel all games scheduled outside of their district/approved area.
[12] The evidence of the president of the PWSA, as summarized by the application judge, was that rule 1.02 was intended to deal with the problem of “single team entries or new associations ‘popping up’” and taxing the pool of athletes, diamonds, umpires, etc.”[^1]
The Majors’ application for PWSA membership
[13] The history of the Majors’ attempts to gain PWSA membership is set out in the reasons of the application judge, and there is no need to repeat that history in full. It suffices to provide the following summary.
[14] The Majors first applied for PWSA membership in 2022. That application was denied because the Majors had not presented a plan, including a budget, that would, in the view of the PWSA, sustain a program. Its attempts to appeal were unsuccessful. At no time were the Majors told that this application had failed because they had failed to have more than one team.
[15] In January of 2023, the Majors submitted a second application for association membership. They prepared a detailed plan, including a budget, but at the membership hearing on March 21, 2023, the PWSA did not ask to see the Majors’ plan. At the close of the hearing, the Majors were told that they could have association membership for the 2024 season on the condition that the Majors not hold open tryouts for players from outside its jurisdiction. In other words, the PWSA wanted to protect against the possibility that the Majors would try to poach players from neighbouring softball associations. Although their application for association membership was denied, the PWSA offered to admit two Majors teams as team members. The Majors refused to agree to the condition set out by the PWSA, believing that they were being treated unfairly and that open tryouts were essential to the success of a competitive program. They also declined the offer of team memberships.
[16] Later, by email dated April 20, 2023, the Majors were advised that their application was rejected because their application presentation lacked “transparency” and because they had engaged in “threats and bullying.”[^2] Still later, in a letter dated May 17, 2023, the PWSA’s counsel advised that the Majors’ application had been denied because they ought to have applied for membership under operating rule 1.02.
[17] At no time were the Majors told that their second application had failed because they had failed to have more than one team. That assertion was made for the first time before the application judge.
The reasons of the application judge
[18] After finding that the Majors had standing as a “complainant” pursuant to s. 182 of the Act, the application judge began her analysis of the PWSA’s membership requirements by referring to s. 48(1) of the Act, which provides that “the by-laws of a corporation must set out the conditions required for being a member of the corporation, including whether a corporation or other entity may be a member.” She then noted that the relevant PWSA by-law, article 2.1, as drafted, is mandatory in nature: applicants who meet the criteria “will be Association members” (emphasis added). No discretion is afforded to reject members who meet the criteria. Moreover, pursuant to article 9.1(d) of the by-laws, those criteria could not be changed absent a special resolution of all voting members of the PWSA.
[19] The Majors made two alternative arguments before the application judge: first, that their application ought to have been “grandfathered in”; and second, that the Majors met all the requirements for membership in the PWSA and, therefore, that their application for membership ought to have been successful. The first argument was dismissed by the application judge, and it is not in issue on this appeal.
[20] With respect to the second argument, the application judge noted that an email from the PWSA president took the view that rule 1.02 of its operating rules governed applications for association membership in the PWSA and that it applied in the present case.[^3] The application judge disagreed, finding that rule 1.02 applied only to teams applying for membership, not to applications for association membership.[^4] Further, the application judge found that by applying rule 1.02 to the Majors’ application, the PWSA had “acted outside the scope” of its own by-laws.[^5]
[21] Since the Majors met all the criteria set out in article 2.1(a) – governance by a board of directors, by-laws and policies, and at least two teams being “put forward”[^6] with its application – the PWSA had erred by denying the Majors’ application because of concerns about poaching players from neighbouring associations, a factor which finds no expression in the by-laws. Since the by-laws conferred no discretion on the Board to reject an applicant which met all the listed criteria, the application judge concluded that on the clear wording of article 2.1(a) and s. 48(1) of the Act, the appropriate order was to make a declaration compelling the PWSA to comply with its by-laws and to grant the Majors association membership forthwith.
Positions of the Parties
[22] There are two grounds of appeal. First, the appellant PWSA submits that the application judge erred by finding that the Majors met all the criteria for association membership in the PWSA. Although the application judge found that the PWSA was not permitted to “read into” its by-laws additional criteria for membership, she herself committed exactly that kind of error by finding that the Majors’ proposal to “put forward at least two teams for affiliation” with its application was the equivalent of having two or more existing team members. The PWSA argues that the latter is required for a successful association membership application and that the Majors’ application was correctly denied because they did not have two or more existing team members at the time of their application.
[23] Second, the PWSA says that it did not apply any other irrelevant criteria to their consideration of the Majors’ application and that the application judge erred in concluding otherwise.
[24] The respondent Majors say that the application judge made no error in the interpretation of the PWSA by-laws. Moreover, it is argued that it was not until this litigation was commenced that the PWSA took the position that the Majors’ application for association membership had been denied because they failed to meet the requirement of having two or more teams. Previously, the Majors were given a variety of different reasons for the denial of their applications. It is argued that the evidence amply supports the conclusions reached by the application judge, including that the PWSA applied irrelevant criteria to its consideration of the Majors’ application.
Standard of Review
[25] The PWSA says that the standard of review ought to be correctness as the central issue on this appeal is the interpretation of the PWSA by-laws. In this respect, the PWSA relies on a decision of the Alberta Court of Appeal which held that the by-laws of condominium boards are “more akin to laws and regulations passed by a legislative body than contractual provisions”: Dunn v. Condominium Corporation No. 042 0105, 2024 ABCA 38, at para. 15 – 18. The Majors argue that the applicable standard of review is palpable and overriding error given that this case involves the application of the PWSA’s by-laws, which are contractual in nature, within a particular factual context.
[26] I am satisfied that the applicable standard of review in this matter is palpable and overriding error. The application judge was required to interpret the Act, the PWSA’s by-laws, and its operating rules and to apply those interpretations to a specific set of facts. I agree with the respondent that on this point the present case is indistinguishable from the decision of this court in Chu v. Scarborough Hospital Corporation (2007), 2007 33757 (ON SCDC), 228 O.A.C. 131 (Div. Ct.) where Linhares de Sousa J. wrote as follows (at paras. 5 – 6):
[The application judge’s] decision involved a legal interpretation of the Corporations Act as well as the Hospital’s By-Laws and the application of that interpretation to the very specific facts of this case. The questions of law are not readily extricable from the questions of fact and hence the standard of review should be that of palpable and overriding error.
[27] The application judge in Scarborough Hospital was required to interpret the by-laws of the hospital and he did so in light of how those by-laws had been interpreted and applied in the past by the hospital board. The ultimate question was whether that interpretation had been reasonable (see paras. 9 – 15). In other words, it was not an exercise of law alone. In the present case, in an effort to support their respective interpretations of the by-laws, both parties relied on evidence of how the PWSA by-laws had been applied in the past. They then applied their view of the meaning of the by-laws to the facts of this case and urged their positions on the application judge. In other words, this too was not an exercise of law alone.
[28] The application of a deferential standard of review is supported by the fact that the by-laws of a not-for-profit corporation are “essentially contractual in nature”: Bhandal v. Khalsa Diwan Society of Victoria, 2014 BCCA 291, at para. 27. See also, Canadian Federation of Students v. Cape Breton University Students’ Union, 2015 ONSC 4093, at para. 115; Re London Humane Society, 2010 ONSC 5775, at para. 16. Their interpretation is therefore subject to the principles which govern the interpretation of contracts: that the by-laws be read as a whole and in context and be applied in a “practical common-sense way”: Canadian Federation of Students, at para. 116. This means that evidence of the “surrounding circumstances” is admissible and may be important to the court’s ultimate conclusion: Sattva Capital Corp. v. Creston Moly Corp., 2014 SCC 53, at paras. 59 – 61. The inquiry, then, is one of mixed fact and law. Moreover, it is clear that the application judge in the present case engaged in just such a mixed inquiry when interpreting the PWSA’s by-laws.
[29] The PWSA attempts to set this case apart from the authorities and reasoning to which I have referred on the basis that the Majors were applying for membership, had not yet become members, and therefore were not parties to the contract which the by-laws represent. They could not, then, invoke the right to apply the contract, or rely on the principles of contractual analysis.
[30] I cannot accept this argument. First, the appellant’s position on this point leads to the possibility both that a different standard of review might apply depending on whether the moving party was a member or an applicant for membership, and that the interpretation of the by-laws might be different depending on the same distinction given that different principles apply to statutory and contractual interpretation.
[31] More importantly, though, the obligation of the PWSA when it was considering the Majors’ application was to apply the by-laws properly at least in part for the benefit of its existing members, in order to fulfill the aims and objectives of the PWSA as they are described in the by-laws. Some of those members participated in the Majors’ membership hearing and they are parties to the “contract” which the by-laws represent. The application judge’s exercise was similar: to determine whether the by-laws had been applied properly in light of the wording of the by-laws and the surrounding context. In all these circumstances, I agree with the Majors that the fundamental nature of the by-laws, and of the interpretive exercise in this case, was contractual in nature even if the Majors were not members – or parties to the contract – when they applied.
[32] For these reasons, I am of the view that the standard of review to be applied in this case is palpable and overriding error.
Discussion
[33] The analysis of the PWSA’s two grounds of appeal requires the discussion of two separate but related questions: (1) did the Majors meet all the criteria for association membership? and (2) why was their application for association membership rejected?
Did the Majors’ application fulfill all the criteria for association membership?
[34] The application judge concluded that the Majors met all the criteria for association membership. In so concluding, the PWSA argues, she erred. It is further argued that the source of that error is the application judge’s failure to read sub-articles 2.1(a) and (b) of the PWSA by-laws together, given that sub-article (b) defines the term “Team Member” which is also used in sub-article (a). For ease of reference, I quote the most pertinent part of article 2.1 again here (emphasis added):
2.1 Categories – The Association has the following categories of members:
(a) Association Membership – Association defined as an entity governed by a Board of Directors, with By-Laws and Policies under which all members are governed. All PWSA affiliated organizations comprising of more than one Team Member who agree to abide by the By-Laws of the Association, as enacted and amended from time to time, will be Association members. Association members have one vote per association.
Note! All Associations affiliated prior to November 2020 will be grandfathered in.
(b) Team Membership – All PWSA affiliated female softball teams who agree to abide by the By-Laws of the Association, as enacted and amended from time to time, will be Team Members, who must be a member of an Affiliated Association. Team Membership is a non-voting class.
[35] It is conceded that the application judge correctly found that article 2.1 was mandatory in nature and affords no discretion. In other words, if its preconditions for membership are met, applicants “will be Association members.” However, the PWSA says that the trial judge erred by failing to recognize that article 2.1(b) defines team member – teams which have met the criteria in that sub-article – and that article 2.1(a) requires the applicant for association membership to have two or more existing team members. As the Majors had no team members at the time of their application for association membership, they did not meet all the criteria in article 2.1(a). It was not enough, as the application judge found, that they “put forward” (para. 74 of her reasons) or “sought to field” (para. 60) more than one team. Those teams were not already team members and therefore did not meet the definition housed in article 2.1(b).
[36] I do not agree that the application judge made a palpable and overriding error in interpreting the by-law because, on its face, the interpretation of the PWSA leads to an absurdity or, as the respondent describes it, “an unworkable ‘chicken and egg’ dilemma [that] renders Article 2.1 a nullity.”
[37] If the PWSA is correct that an association applying for membership must have two or more team members before the application is made, then there must be a mechanism for team membership which can proceed independently and in advance of the mechanism for association membership. However, pursuant to article 2.1(b), a PWSA team member “must be a member of an Affiliated Association.” The term “affiliated association” is nowhere defined in the by-laws (nor is the term “affiliated organization” which is used in article 2.1(a)) but, as the Majors argue, the reader is necessarily driven to the conclusion that the word “affiliated” is used in article 2.1 in a manner that renders “affiliation” synonymous with “membership.” For example, to be a team member, a team must be a member of an affiliated association, but there are no means described in the by-laws by which to have an “affiliation” with the PWSA other than by being an “association member.”
[38] It is true that the PWSA operating rules provide for applications for team “affiliation,” but those rules say nothing of applications for association “affiliation.” Nor are the operating rules a component of the by-laws, as the application judge correctly found. As the PWSA concedes, and as s. 48 of the Act provides, the criteria for membership are to be found in the by-laws alone. Moreover, to the extent that the operating rule invites applications for single team memberships, it requires those applications to come from teams which are “not affiliated with an affiliated member softball association” (emphasis added). Team membership as defined by article 2.1(b) of the by-laws, by contrast, provides that teams “must be a member of an affiliated association” (emphasis added). In other words, an affiliate team under the operating rules could not be a team member under the by-law and vice versa.
[39] If a team must be a member of an affiliated association before it can be a team member, and as “affiliated association” appears to mean an association which is a PWSA member, then, on the PWSA’s interpretation, an association applying for a new PWSA membership – which is required to have more than one “team member” – could never be successful since none of its teams could possibly be team members. This is the chicken and egg problem to which the Majors refer.
[40] The more reasonable interpretation of the by-laws is the one urged by the Majors. That interpretation rejects the proposition that becoming an association member is a two-stage procedure by which an association first has at least two team members and then applies for association membership. Instead, it urges the proposition that team and association memberships can properly proceed simultaneously.
[41] I agree with this interpretation for several reasons. First, the PWSA interpretation leads to the chicken and egg problem described above. Second, the two-stage procedure is nowhere spelled out in the by-laws, nor even in the operating rules. Third, the PWSA has previously admitted associations as members without requiring two existing teams.
[42] And fourth, the PWSA’s two-stage interpretation results in an empty formalism that is no different in substance than the simultaneous interpretation urged by the Majors. Pursuant to article 2.3 of the by-laws, membership – both team and association – commences “on the day of the acceptance by the Association Registrar.” Nothing in the by-laws prevents an application for two or more team memberships (which teams “will be” accepted as members if they meet the criteria in article 2.1(b)), followed immediately upon the registrar’s acceptance of those applications by an application for association membership from the association of which those teams are members (which association “will be” accepted as a member if it meets the criteria in article 2.1(a)).
[43] In oral argument, counsel for the PWSA agreed that if the Majors had accepted the offer of team membership for the teams it put forward in March of 2023 it could then have “immediately” applied for association membership. Since the by-laws afford the PWSA no discretion to refuse an application for association membership where all the criteria of article 2.1(a) are met, the PWSA would then have been required to accept the Majors’ application for association membership at that time. In other words, the granting of team and association memberships would have been, effectively, simultaneous.
[44] For these reasons, it cannot be concluded that the application judge’s interpretation of the by-law was tainted by palpable and overriding error.
Why was the Majors’ application rejected?
[45] The PWSA’s position depends on its assertion that the Majors’ application was denied because they failed to apply with two existing team members. The corollary to this argument is the PWSA’s submission that the application judge erred by finding that the Major’s application was denied for reasons unrelated to the criteria in article 2.1(a).
[46] As noted earlier in these reasons, the application judge found that the PWSA, by applying operating rule 1.02 and acting on concerns about poaching players from neighbouring associations, had “acted outside the scope” of its own by-laws. Given that the Majors met all the criteria set out in article 2.1(a) – governance by a board of directors, by-laws and policies, and at least two teams being “put forward” with its application – the PWSA had no discretion to refuse the Majors’ application and had erred in doing so.
[47] The PWSA argues, though, that the application judge’s error was to consider that operating rule 1.02 was applied to the Majors’ application for association membership. In this respect, the PWSA says that rule 1.02 applies to applications for team memberships only. Since there was no team application, and therefore no team memberships, it follows that the application for association membership was also correctly rejected for that reason (even though team memberships were offered). This is, effectively, a recasting of the PWSA’s argument on the first ground of appeal.
[48] For their part, the Majors assert that they were clear that they were applying for an association membership, not team memberships. Indeed, their view was that rule 1.02 had no application in this case precisely because they were not applying for team memberships. There is a clear foundation in the record for these submissions, which the application judge accepted. And, as noted above, the application judge correctly found that rule 1.02 had no application to a request for association membership.
[49] Accordingly, it appears that the parties now agree that rule 1.02 had no relevance to the Major’s application for association membership.
[50] A significant barrier to the straightforward analysis of this ground of appeal is the fact that it is difficult to discern exactly why the Majors’ application was dismissed. As the Majors’ point out, the record supports the conclusion that their application was variously denied because they had failed to supply a comprehensive plan, including a budget, because they declined to agree not to hold open tryouts, because their application lacked transparency and was accompanied by threats and bullying, and because they had failed to apply under operating rule 1.02.
[51] On my review of the record produced for this appeal, it seems (as the Majors submit) that the PWSA’s assertion that the Majors’ application was rejected because the Majors failed to apply with two existing team members was not made until after this litigation was commenced. In addition, although at points during and after the application process the Majors’ attention was directed to rule 1.02 (which applies to applications for team membership), the Majors were never told that team membership applications must be made before an application for association membership and that is certainly not clear on the face of rule 1.02. Indeed, in this case a hearing was held to consider the Majors’ application for association membership. If that application was doomed to fail ab initio, there was no point in holding that hearing.
[52] Nevertheless, a hearing proceeded where the Majors’ application was treated seriously and where they were expressly told that their application for association membership would fail if they did not agree to refrain from poaching players – not because they did not already have team members. In my view, this tells against the submissions (a) that the Majors were required to have two pre-existing member teams and (b) that their failure to have two such teams was the reason for the rejection of their application.
[53] I accept the submission that the PWSA committee that rejected the Majors’ application is comprised of laypeople who are not held to the same standard for procedural fairness as are, for example, judges: Gymnopoulos v. Ontario Association of Basketball Officials, 2016 ONSC 1525, at para. 55. However, it seems to me that if it were true that the Majors’ application was rejected because they failed to have two existing team members at the time of their application, it would have been a straightforward matter even for a layperson to report that the application was deficient for that reason. Further, though, the fact that this rationale for rejection was not advanced until well after the application was rejected, weighs heavily against the conclusion that it was in fact a deficiency, or that it was the reason for rejection. Of course, my earlier conclusion that the Majors were not required by the by-law to have two existing team members also weighs against this conclusion.
[54] Moreover, even if rule 1.02 did apply, and even if the Majors should have been applying for team memberships, the provisions of operating rule 1.02 could not have superseded the by-laws or conferred any discretion on the PWSA to reject a team which met all the criteria set out in sub-article 2.1(b), which requires only that such teams agree to abide by the by-laws. It is not disputed that the Majors’ (and their proposed teams) met this precondition to membership. Accordingly, if the Majors’ teams were properly the applicants, their applications ought to have been accepted without condition. And in that case, even on the PWSA argument, the Majors would then have met all the criteria for association membership, which ought then to have been granted.
[55] The fact that the Majors and their teams were rejected, then, was for reasons which had nothing to do with the criteria described in sub-articles 2.1(a) and (b). Those reasons, as the application judge correctly found, related to the PWSA’s concerns respecting the poaching of players from neighbouring associations.[^7] As the application judge also found, it is open to the PWSA to include such provisions in its by-laws by amending the by-laws. However, as she wrote at para. 79 of her reasons, “it cannot apply an operational rule or policy to deny membership selectively to associations that otherwise meet its membership criteria as set out in its by-laws.”
[56] In all these circumstances, it cannot be said that the application judge made any palpable or overriding error by concluding that the PWSA rejected the Majors’ application for reasons other than any alleged failure to meet the criteria for association membership set out in article 2.1 of the PWSA by-laws.
Conclusion
[57] For these reasons the appeal is dismissed. As agreed at the hearing of this matter, the appellant PWSA shall pay the respondent Majors’ costs of this appeal fixed at $17,000, all inclusive.
[58] I close by observing that this litigation between two volunteer-run organizations committed to providing sporting opportunities to girls and women is very unfortunate. Nothing in these reasons – which seek only to resolve a disagreement about the meaning and application of by-laws – should be taken as reflecting on the good will of anyone involved in this dispute.
I. Smith J.
I agree _____________________________
Sachs J.
I agree _____________________________
McCarthy J.
Released: May 12, 2025
CITATION: Provincial Women’s Softball v. Mississauga Majors, 2025 ONSC 2835
DIVISIONAL COURT FILE NO.: DC-24-0084
DATE: 20250512
ONTARIO
SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE
DIVISIONAL COURT
SACHS, McCARTHY and SMITH JJ.
BETWEEN:
PROVINCIAL WOMEN’S SOFTBALL ASSOCIATION Appellant
– and –
MISSISSAUGA MAJORS BASEBALL ASSOCIATION Respondent
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT
I.R. Smith J.
Released: May 12, 2025
[^1]: See para. 16 of the application judge’s reasons.
[^2]: The application judge noted (at para. 41 of her reasons) that, during the hearing before her, she was not directed to any evidence of “threats and bullying.”
[^3]: As will be seen, this is not the position being advanced by the PWSA on this appeal.
[^4]: In this respect, at para. 64 of her reasons, the application judge wrote that the “operating rule expressly states that it applies to single team entries. It does not set out membership criteria for an association.”
[^5]: See para. 82 of the reasons. At paras. 79 – 80 of her reasons, the application judge found that rule 1.02 provided for the formation of a committee to consider membership applications but did not confer any discretion to ignore the membership criteria set out in the PWSA by-laws. See also, paras. 64 and 75.
[^6]: See para. 74 of the reasons of the application judge. See also, para. 60.
[^7]: Indeed, this conclusion was based on the application judge’s acceptance of the evidence of the president of the PWSA (see para. 75 of the application judge’s reasons).