R. Lee Akazaki

The defendant requested that the plaintiff's action be dismissed as frivolous, vexatious, or an abuse of process under Rule 2.1.01 of the Rules of Civil Procedure.

The self-represented plaintiff had filed two statements of claim relating to employment insurance benefits and the termination of his federal public service employment.

The court dismissed the defendant's request, finding that while the claims might be struck for disclosing no reasonable cause of action under Rule 21, they did not meet the strict threshold for dismissal under Rule 2.1.01.

Tedescon applied to set aside or appeal an arbitral award that ordered it to pay damages to the County of Simcoe for abandoning a road reconstruction contract.

The arbitrator had found that Tedescon was justified in stopping work due to the County's contract administrator's bias, but simultaneously held that Tedescon's refusal to remobilize constituted an unlawful abandonment.

The Superior Court dismissed Tedescon's application under s. 46 of the Arbitration Act, finding no jurisdictional error or breach of fairness in the arbitrator's accounting methodology.

The Court also dismissed the applications for leave to appeal under s. 45(1), holding that the parties' agreement to 'final and binding' arbitration implicitly precluded any right of appeal.

Although the Court noted the arbitrator made an extricable error of law by finding Tedescon liable for repudiation despite having a contractual right to stop work, the Court was bound by the arbitration agreement's privative language and could not intervene.

The applicant marina operator sought a permanent injunction to remove the respondent's live-in boat from its marina after declining to renew his seasonal dock permit due to his abusive and harassing emails to staff.

The respondent argued the Landlord and Tenant Board had exclusive jurisdiction under the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA).

The Superior Court held that the RTA does not apply to a marina slip because a slip in a water lot is not a 'site on land' and therefore cannot be a mobile home park or rental unit under the RTA.

The court granted a permanent injunction requiring the respondent to remove his boat and prohibiting him from reapplying for a permit for two years.

Tricor and Premier entered into a three-year agreement in 2014 for Premier to administer automotive warranty and service contracts.

In 2018, Tricor informed Premier of its intention to transition to a new service platform, Allegiance, without providing 12 months' notice of termination, as Tricor believed the agreement was non-exclusive.

Premier treated this as an anticipatory repudiation, withheld commissions owed to Tricor, and abruptly shut down the service portal.

The court found that the agreement was not exclusive and that Premier breached the contract by withdrawing services without proper notice.

Premier's claims for breach of contract and proprietary rights were dismissed.

Tricor was awarded $1,265,274 in damages for business losses and withheld commissions.

The defendant insurer moved for summary judgment to dismiss the plaintiff law firm's claim for business interruption coverage.

The law firm was forced to close indefinitely after organized criminals in the tow truck industry targeted its office with arson and gunfire, causing its insurance clients to withdraw all their files out of fear of further attacks.

The insurer argued that the policy only covered business interruption during the time required to physically repair the building.

The court dismissed the insurer's motion and granted a declaration of coverage in favour of the law firm, finding that the extended closure was 'as a result of' the direct physical loss or damage from the insured peril of criminal acts.

The plaintiffs brought an action against the Islamic Republic of Iran for damages arising from the torture and imprisonment of the plaintiff by Iranian officials after his return as a prisoner of war.

Iran was noted in default.

The court found that the mistreatment of the plaintiff constituted 'terrorist activity' under the Criminal Code, thereby lifting Iran's state immunity under the State Immunity Act and the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act.

The court awarded the plaintiff $100 million in compensatory damages and $100 million in punitive damages, along with derivative damages to his wife and daughter under the Family Law Act.

The applicant tenant brought an application under Rule 14.05(3)(d) for the interpretation of a commercial lease to determine whether the 'Net Rentable Area' included two mezzanines.

The respondent landlord argued that the mezzanines should be included based on an architect's certificate and expert evidence of standard commercial practice.

The court held that the plain and grammatical meaning of the lease defined a shell and did not contemplate adding the mezzanine floor area to the calculation.

The court rejected the expert evidence as an attempt to rewrite the contract and found the architect's certificate failed to follow the lease's methodology.

The plaintiffs moved to enforce a $600,000 settlement reached at mediation for injuries sustained when the plaintiff was struck by a construction fence.

The defendants opposed enforcement, arguing the settlement was vitiated by fraud because the insurance agent who authorized the settlement had issued a fake policy, leaving the defendants uninsured.

The court granted the motion, finding that defence counsel had apparent authority to bind the defendants and that the alleged fraud by a third party did not invalidate the agreement.

The court held it would be unjust to shift the burden of the insurance fraud onto the innocent plaintiff, and the defendants must pursue their remedies against the insurance intermediaries.

The plaintiffs sued for breach of an oral profit-sharing agreement related to a federal government contract to supply surgical gowns during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The court found that the parties had formed a binding oral contract to collaborate and share net profits on an 80.6/19.4 split, despite the lack of a signed written agreement and the defendant's claim that board approval was required.

The court awarded the plaintiff $10,229,782 in damages, representing 19.4% of the net profits from the gowns contract.

The defendant sought leave from the case management judge to bring a motion extending the time to serve a responding handwriting expert report, just weeks before trial.

The defendant had repeatedly missed deadlines and failed to retain an expert until after the original documents were allegedly lost.

The court dismissed the motion for leave, holding that any request to admit the late report or address spoliation must be brought de novo before the trial judge under Rule 53.08, as further case management intervention would risk treading on the trial judge's role.

The plaintiffs brought an interpleader claim regarding $2,857,831.58 held in escrow following the sale of a real estate development property under a power of sale.

The funds represented a portion of the remaining sale proceeds after the discharge of a first mortgage.

The court found that the joint venturers had structured their investment as a loan to defer capital gains tax, which operated as an equitable charge on the limited partner's interest.

The court held that the plaintiffs were entitled to priority distribution of the escrowed funds over the defendants' claims for partnership set-off, pursuant to the trust obligations and section 44 of the Partnerships Act.

The applicant, an Ontario company operating a mine in Newfoundland, sought an interpleader order under Rule 43 to pay quarterly royalties into court.

The applicant faced conflicting demands regarding payment due to a corporate governance dispute over the parent company of the creditor, which was being litigated in the Cayman Islands and British Columbia.

The court dismissed the application, finding that Rule 43 is unavailable when the court lacks jurisdiction to determine the underlying dispute over corporate control.

However, the court granted interim relief allowing the applicant to pay the funds to the creditor's counsel in trust for 90 days to permit the commencement of interpleader proceedings in the appropriate forum.

The court heard competing motions by a court-appointed receiver and a third-party purchaser (BJC) regarding the sale of a commercial property.

The property was subject to a mortgage that fell into default, prompting the mortgagee to exercise its statutory power of sale and enter into an agreement with BJC.

Subsequently, a receiver was appointed over the mortgagor corporation in an oppression action and sought to sell the same property en bloc with another property to a different purchaser.

The court held that the receivership order under the Business Corporations Act and Courts of Justice Act did not suspend or supersede the mortgagee's pre-existing statutory power of sale under the Mortgages Act.

The receiver's motion to approve its sale was dismissed, and the mortgagee was permitted to complete its sale to BJC.

York University applied for a declaration that four student residence buildings on its campus, built and operated by a private developer, remained exempt from municipal property tax under section 18 of the York University Act, 1965.

The Municipal Property Assessment Corporation argued the buildings lost their exemption because they were used and occupied by the private developer for profit.

The Superior Court of Justice granted the application, finding that the buildings were used and occupied for the legislated purposes of the university, despite the involvement of a private developer, and therefore remained exempt from taxation.

The plaintiffs brought a summary judgment motion for specific performance of an agreement of purchase and sale for a new home.

The vendor had attempted to terminate the agreement due to increased construction costs, but did so after the contractual cancellation date.

The court found the vendor in breach and ordered specific performance, requiring the transfer of the land with an abatement of the purchase price equal to the estimated cost of construction.

The court also dismissed the vendor's third-party claim against the municipality, finding that building officials do not owe a duty of care to protect a developer's profit margins from delays in processing building permits.

The applicant, acting through a litigation guardian under power of attorney due to neurocognitive disability, sought court approval under Rule 7.08 of the Rules of Civil Procedure for a SABS settlement arising from a 2017 traffic accident.

The settlement had been negotiated by a licensed paralegal rather than a lawyer, raising a procedural issue under subrule 7.08(4)(b) which requires an affidavit from the lawyer who acted for the litigation guardian.

The court concluded that Rule 7.08 does not apply to SABS settlements because the Insurance Act confers exclusive jurisdiction over SABS disputes on the Licence Appeal Tribunal, and paragraph 3 of subrule 1.02(1) excludes the Rules of Civil Procedure where a statute provides a different procedure.

The application was dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, but the court clarified the dismissal does not invalidate or disapprove the settlement.

This costs decision follows the court's substantive orders of September 23, 2025 (2025 ONSC 4703).

The applicants sought $65,000 in costs based on a legal bill of $115,110.

Steven Jackson and 2131376 Ontario Ltd. sought $58,407 based on a legal bill of $93,185.

Peter Jackson claimed $21,719 based on a legal bill of $33,014.

The court found that the applicants' allegations of domestic abuse and misappropriation, which failed to be proven, escalated the litigation.

The court awarded costs to Peter Jackson in the amount of $21,719.44 on a partial indemnity scale, payable by the applicants.

No costs were awarded as between the applicants and Steven Jackson and 2131376 Ontario Ltd.

The Ontario Government moved to dismiss or stay a human rights action brought by a self-represented Crown lawyer alleging workplace discrimination and harassment based on race and gender.

The Crown argued that the plaintiff was bound by a collective agreement containing mandatory arbitration provisions.

The court dismissed the motion on two grounds: first, the plaintiff was not a unionized employee and therefore the Weber doctrine did not deprive the court of jurisdiction; and second, the Crown failed to establish on the evidence that the plaintiff was a party to the collective agreement.

The court also found that portions of the plaintiff's claim alleging systemic institutional racism fell outside the scope of the arbitration agreement's subject matter jurisdiction, even if the agreement were binding.

Ryerson Futures Inc. brought a Rule 21 motion to strike the oppression claim against it for failure to disclose a reasonable cause of action.

The plaintiff alleged that minority shareholders orchestrated his termination and the undervalued sale of company assets through a shareholders' agreement mechanism.

The court found that the pleadings disclosed no viable oppression claim against Ryerson, as it had no active role in the termination, lacked voting power to prevent the shareholder resolution, and its consent to the transaction was irrelevant.

The court granted leave to amend within 20 days, with costs awarded to Ryerson.

This case arose from a family dispute following a corporate restructuring in September 2020 involving two patio furnishings businesses operated by spouses Kimberley and Steven Jackson.

The applicants sought to invalidate the transfer of nine shares in Distinctly Patio Inc. (DPI) to their son Peter, claiming the transfer was funded through an unauthorized bonus paid by DPI to Peter.

The applicants also sought an accounting for profits allegedly earned by 2131376 Ontario Ltd. (operating as Think Patio) in violation of a non-competition clause in the DPI shareholders' agreement.

The respondents relied on a two-year limitation period defense.

The court found that while Peter became a shareholder despite not signing the shareholders' agreement, the applicants' claims based on the bonus and share transfer were statute-barred.

The court dismissed the constructive trust claim on the merits, finding insufficient evidence of misappropriation.

However, the court found that Steven and 2131376 likely breached the non-competition clause and ordered an accounting reference.

The court also granted Peter's counterapplication for oppression remedies, ordering DPI to redeem his shares for $17,167.42.