Robert A. Blair

The appellant appealed convictions for discharging a firearm with intent to wound and aggravated assault following a jury trial.

He argued that the trial judge impermissibly bolstered the complainant’s evidence in the jury charge by referring to a prior consistent statement after admitted perjury, and that the acquittals on attempted murder and robbery rendered the verdicts inconsistent.

The court rejected both grounds, holding that the impugned instruction was merely an example of inconsistent statements and would not have bolstered the complainant’s testimony.

The court also held that the different mens rea requirements and factual findings available to the jury made the verdicts logically reconcilable.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant appealed a conviction for first degree murder and conceded that a conviction for second degree murder was inevitable.

The appeal challenged the jury charge on planning and deliberation, including whether post-offence conduct could be considered and whether psychiatric evidence was properly left with the jury.

The court held that it was open to the jury to consider the appellant's actions after the killing in response to the defence theory of impulsive and disorganized conduct.

The court further held that the psychiatric evidence was primarily relevant to provocation, which lacked an air of reality, and that any remaining relevance to planning and deliberation was adequately addressed.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant appealed a firearm conviction and sentence arising from multiple firearm-related offences.

The court held that the evidentiary record did not establish knowledge that the firearm had been obtained by the commission of an offence, and therefore the conviction under s. 96(2) could not stand.

On sentence, the respondent conceded reassessment was required in light of appellate authority concerning firearm sentencing.

The court quashed the s. 96(2) conviction and reduced the firearm sentences, while imposing an eight-month consecutive sentence on the s. 117.01(3) count.

The appellant sought leave to appeal sentence, challenging the sentencing judge's approach to enhanced credit for pre-sentence custody.

The court granted leave but dismissed the sentence appeal.

It held that the sentencing judge did not err by considering that the appellant would not have been eligible for bail because of his criminal record, and properly took into account delay attributable to both the Crown and the defence.

The exercise of discretion in awarding significant enhanced credit warranted no appellate intervention.

The appellant appealed from a Superior Court judgment in a dispute involving family medicine program respondents and universities.

The Court of Appeal held that, assuming amendments to the Regulated Health Profession Act applied, they applied to the College and not to any of the respondents.

The court further held that the action was an abuse of process for the reasons given below.

The appeal was dismissed with fixed costs payable to the respondents.

In a second appeal arising from insurance class proceedings concerning participating account transactions implemented in a 1997 life insurance acquisition, the appellants challenged the trial judge’s interpretation of the remedial formula previously crafted by the Court of Appeal.

The court held that the objective of the remedy was to unwind the transactions as of the effective date by restoring the participating accounts and shareholder accounts to the positions they would have occupied had the transactions not occurred, without conferring a windfall.

It concluded that amortization charges could not reduce the merger expense savings deduction, that the 6.91 percent return under paragraph 200(e) had to be calculated on an after-tax basis, and that paragraph 200(e) formed part of the deduction rather than an addition to the amount payable.

The appeal was allowed, the effective date remained December 31, 2011, and the amount repayable to the participating accounts was fixed at $51.6 million subject to updating.

In three related securities class action appeals, the court reconsidered whether a statutory secondary-market misrepresentation claim under s. 138.3 of the Securities Act is time-barred unless leave is obtained within the s. 138.14 limitation period.

The court overruled Timminco and held that, for purposes of s. 28 of the Class Proceedings Act, 1992, the statutory claim is asserted when the representative plaintiff pleads the statutory cause of action, the supporting facts, and an intention to seek leave within a timely commenced class proceeding.

The court also upheld the motion judge's interpretation of the s. 138.8 leave standard as screening out hopeless claims, while holding that the Green certification decision erred in failing to consider certifying common negligent misrepresentation issues other than reliance.

The plaintiffs' appeal in Green was allowed in part and the defendants' appeals in Silver and Celestica were dismissed.

The Crown appealed a sentence imposed after conviction for possession of a loaded prohibited firearm under s. 95(1) of the Criminal Code.

Following the court's earlier ruling that the mandatory minimum sentence was unconstitutional and that the trial sentence was manifestly unfit, the remaining issue was whether the respondent should be re-incarcerated after having completed the sentence originally imposed.

The court held that a fit sentence at trial would have been two years less a day, with 12 months' credit reducing the remaining custodial term to 12 months.

However, given the lengthy appellate delay, the respondent's successful completion of the conditional sentence, and his demonstrated rehabilitation, the court permanently stayed execution of the 12-month sentence.

The appellants operated a trucking business on an unpaved lot adjacent to the respondents' lighting manufacturing facility.

Airborne dust from the trucks caused a substantial and unreasonable interference with the respondents' business, leading to a trial judgment for nuisance and trespass, including significant damages for lost productivity.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal upheld the finding of liability in nuisance but set aside the damages awards for lost productivity.

The Court found that the trial judge erred in principle by devising his own formula to quantify the lost productivity damages, which was not supported by the evidentiary record and deprived the appellants of the opportunity to challenge it.

A new trial was ordered limited to the assessment of lost productivity damages.

The appellant appealed his conviction for first degree murder, arguing that the trial judge erred in his jury instructions regarding aiding and abetting, the mens rea for murder, and manslaughter.

The appellant also challenged the exclusion of hearsay statements by a co-accused and the admission of intercepted conversations.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the jury instructions, read as a whole, adequately conveyed the essential issues and that any errors were harmless.

The court also upheld the evidentiary rulings, concluding that the hearsay statements lacked reliability and necessity, and the intercepted conversations were relevant to the Crown's theory without being unduly prejudicial.

The appellant was convicted of robbery and unlawful confinement.

During the investigation, police officers subjected the appellant and his co-accused to deliberate, prolonged, and violent beatings to extract confessions.

The trial judge found egregious Charter breaches but refused to grant a stay of proceedings, opting instead to reduce the appellant's sentence.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal held that the trial judge erred in principle by failing to consider the systemic ramifications of the police misconduct and its impact on the integrity of the justice system.

The Court concluded that the state misconduct was so egregious that carrying the prosecution forward would be offensive to society, warranting a stay of proceedings under the residual category.

The appellant commenced an action against the respondents for default in payment of fees.

One of the respondents successfully moved to stay the action under s. 7 of the Arbitration Act, 1991, with the motion judge applying the competence-competence principle to defer the jurisdictional issue to the arbitrator.

The appellant appealed the stay.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that the competence-competence principle applies to the Arbitration Act, 1991, and that s. 7(6) of the Act bars an appeal from a decision granting a stay on the basis that the arbitrator should determine their own jurisdiction.

The appellant, MasterCard, sought to stay an Ontario action brought by the respondent, Aldo, on the basis of a New York forum selection clause contained in agreements to which Aldo was not a party.

Aldo's claims arose from a cybercrime attack and subsequent data security assessments imposed by MasterCard and collected by Moneris.

The Court of Appeal upheld the motion judge's decision dismissing the stay, finding that Aldo's claims were direct tort claims rather than subrogated contractual claims.

The Court declined to apply the 'closely related' doctrine to bind Aldo to the forum selection clause, as it was not foreseeable that the clause would apply to its claims.

The appellant appealed an order dismissing his motion to stay or dismiss the respondent's defamation action on the basis of maintenance and champerty.

The appellant argued that the respondent's employer funding the litigation and the respondent's pledge to donate punitive damages to a university scholarship constituted maintenance and champerty.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no error in the motion judge's conclusion that the funding arrangement was lawful.

The court also rejected the appellant's claims of bias and inadequate time for submissions.

The appellant appealed a trial judge's decision to proceed with an uncontested trial after his pleadings were struck by pretrial orders.

The appellant sought to introduce fresh evidence on appeal consisting of evidence he would have adduced had the trial been contested.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no palpable and overriding error by the trial judge and holding that the appellant could not satisfy the due diligence requirement for admitting fresh evidence.

The appellant's proposed wind power project was cancelled by the Ontario government during an election campaign.

The appellant sued for damages, alleging misfeasance in public office, claiming the government acted in bad faith for electoral expediency and specifically targeted the appellant to cripple it financially.

The motion judge struck the statement of claim.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal allowed the claim for misfeasance in public office to proceed, but only on the narrow basis that the government's conduct was specifically targeted to injure the appellant financially.

The court held that core policy decisions based on electoral expediency do not constitute bad faith for the purposes of misfeasance in public office.

The appellant, a property owner, confronted two trespassers poaching fish from his private pond.

He fired a shotgun and held one trespasser at gunpoint.

He was convicted of assault with a weapon and using a firearm while committing an indictable offence.

On appeal, he argued the trial judge erred in instructing the jury on the defence of property, that the Kienapple rule barred multiple convictions, and that the mandatory minimum one-year sentence for the firearm offence violated s. 12 of the Charter.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no error in the jury charge, that Kienapple did not apply because the offences had distinguishing elements, and that the mandatory minimum sentence was not grossly disproportionate.

The appellant appealed his sentence of seven years' imprisonment for possession of a loaded, prohibited firearm and other firearms offences.

He challenged the constitutionality of the five-year mandatory minimum sentence under s. 95(2)(a)(ii) of the Criminal Code for a second or subsequent offence.

The Court of Appeal held that the mandatory minimum sentence violated s. 12 of the Charter as it would be grossly disproportionate in reasonable hypothetical scenarios, and could not be saved under s. 1.

The provision was declared of no force and effect.

However, the appellant's seven-year sentence was upheld as fit given his extensive criminal record and the gravity of his offences.

The appellant, a repeat firearms offender, appealed his global sentence of eight years' imprisonment for eight firearm-related offences, including possession of a restricted firearm and breaches of two firearms prohibition orders.

He argued the sentencing judge erred in imposing consecutive sentences for the prohibition breaches, that the global sentence offended the parity principle, and that the mandatory minimum sentence was unconstitutional.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no error in the consecutive sentences and concluding the global sentence was fit and did not offend the parity principle.

The Court declined to address the constitutional challenge as the sentence was justified regardless of the mandatory minimum.

The Crown appealed the sentence imposed on the respondent for possession of a loaded prohibited firearm.

The trial judge had declared the three-year mandatory minimum sentence unconstitutional under s. 12 of the Charter and imposed a five-month conditional sentence.

The Court of Appeal upheld the declaration that the mandatory minimum violates s. 12 of the Charter, relying on its companion decision in R. v. Nur.

However, the Court found that the trial judge made unsupported findings of fact that improperly mitigated the offence.

The Court concluded the original sentence was manifestly inadequate and requested further submissions to determine an appropriate sentence.