Robert E. Charney

This sentencing decision concerns a defendant convicted of procuring, luring, and obtaining sexual services from a 17-year-old complainant.

The court addresses the appropriate sentence, considering aggravating factors such as the defendant's age and multiple incidents, and mitigating factors including no prior criminal record and a mistaken belief about the age of consent for sexual activity.

The decision also discusses the constitutional validity of mandatory minimum sentences for luring in light of recent Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence (Friesen, Sullivan, Hills, Hilbach) and the impact of Bill C-5 on the availability of conditional sentences.

The court ultimately imposes a global sentence of 3 years in custody, to be served concurrently for all counts, along with a Sex Offender Information Registry Act order and a DNA order.

The moving parties brought a motion for leave to appeal an order.

The Divisional Court dismissed the motion for leave to appeal on the basis that the impugned order was final, meaning an appeal could be brought as of right.

The court set a deadline for any motion to extend the time to appeal and ordered no costs for the leave motion.

The appellant brought a motion for leave to appeal an October 4, 2022 order.

The Divisional Court dismissed the motion for leave to appeal.

As neither party uploaded their costs materials to CaseLines by the directed deadline, the court made no order as to costs.

The moving party brought a motion for leave to appeal an order of the Superior Court of Justice.

The Divisional Court dismissed the motion for leave to appeal and ordered the moving party to pay costs of $9,334.37 to the responding party.

The moving party sought leave to appeal an order of Dietrich J. The Divisional Court dismissed the motion for leave to appeal and ordered the moving party to pay costs of $5,000 to the Office of the Children's Lawyer and $5,000 to the responding estate trustees.

The plaintiff brought a motion to inspect documents over which the defendant claimed solicitor-client and litigation privilege in an action for property damage allegedly caused by negligent road construction.

The court reviewed the disputed documents and found that most were protected by privilege, as litigation was contemplated early in the parties' negotiations.

The court ordered the production of a few documents that did not meet the test for privilege.

The court also dismissed the plaintiff's argument that the defendant had impliedly waived privilege in its Statement of Defence, but granted the plaintiff's motion to strike a paragraph of the Statement of Defence with leave to amend.

The tenants appealed an eviction order from the Landlord and Tenant Board.

The tenants had vacated the unit over two years prior and had not paid rent since December 2020, accumulating over $25,000 in arrears.

The tenants argued they were entitled to a rent abatement for non-repairs.

The court ordered that the statutory stay of the eviction order would be lifted unless the tenants paid the full arrears and ongoing monthly rent, noting that tenants cannot unilaterally withhold rent.

The City of Toronto and the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation appealed a decision holding that 'Air Parcels'—stratified parcels starting above the ground—are not 'land' under the Assessment Act until fixed to the ground.

The Divisional Court allowed the appeal, finding that at common law, real property includes the air space above the ground.

The court held that the statutory definition of 'land' in the Assessment Act expanded upon, rather than restricted, the common law definition.

Consequently, the severed air parcels qualify as 'land' and are subject to assessment and taxation even before any structures are built.

The College of Early Childhood Educators appealed a penalty order imposing a four-month suspension and conditions on an early childhood educator for failing to supervise a child and breaching professional standards.

The College sought revocation of the educator's license, arguing the penalty was clearly unfit and inconsistent with the misconduct findings.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding the Discipline Committee properly considered mitigating factors, including a five-year period where the educator could not work due to unproven abuse allegations, and did not err in applying the principle of proportionality.

The defendants brought a motion to quash several summonses issued by the plaintiff to employees and a former employee of Georgian College.

The plaintiff sought to examine these witnesses in advance of her motion for a mandatory interlocutory injunction regarding a hiring process for an Associate Dean position.

The court quashed the summonses for the non-party witnesses, finding the request to be a fishing expedition that failed to meet the requirements of Rule 39.03.

However, the court permitted the examination of two named defendants, subject to the condition that they could not be examined again for discovery without leave of the court.

The applicant children's aid society brought a motion for leave to appeal an order.

The Divisional Court dismissed the motion for leave to appeal and lifted the stay of the order.

Costs of $3,000 were awarded to one respondent and $3,000 to two other respondents.

The plaintiff lawyer brought a motion for summary judgment in a mortgage action against the defendant corporation.

The mortgage was given as security for unpaid legal fees owed by the mother of the defendant's sole officer.

The defendant requested an adjournment of the summary judgment motion pending the resolution of applications to assess the plaintiff's legal accounts under the Solicitors Act.

The court granted the adjournment, finding that proceeding with the mortgage action before the assessments were completed would contravene the public policy underlying section 6(4) of the Solicitors Act.

Following a judge-alone criminal trial, the court convicted the accused of kidnapping, threatening conduct, sexual assault, breaching a no-contact order, uttering threats, attempting to obstruct justice, and intimidating a justice system participant, arising from intimate-partner violence, forced confinement, coerced drug ingestion, sexual activity obtained through fear, and subsequent jail calls to the complainant.

Applying the W.(D.) framework, the court found the complainant credible and reliable despite memory gaps on peripheral details, and rejected the accused’s denials on the material issues.

On the sexual assault count, the court applied the consent principles in Ewanchuk and held that any ostensible consent was vitiated by choking, threats, fear, and duress.

The accused was acquitted only on the count alleging administration of Ketamine with intent to endanger life or cause bodily harm because the Crown conceded the requisite mens rea was not proven.

The tenant appealed a Landlord and Tenant Board review order that denied a request to review a consent eviction order.

At a case management conference, the court considered whether to lift the automatic stay of eviction pending appeal.

The court ordered the tenant to pay $12,000 in acknowledged rent arrears and ongoing monthly rent of $1,345 as a condition of maintaining the stay of the eviction order.

The plaintiff brought a motion for summary judgment claiming constructive dismissal after his employer unilaterally cancelled his company vehicle benefit.

The court found the cancellation constituted a significant reduction in compensation and amounted to constructive dismissal.

The employment contract's termination clause was deemed void for ambiguity regarding statutory minimums.

The court set a reasonable notice period of 10 months, but reduced it by 30% to 7 months because the plaintiff failed to mitigate his damages by moving away from the job market.

The parent company was found to be a common employer.

Damages were awarded in the amount of $56,025.

The applicant, previously declared a vexatious litigant, sought leave under s. 140(3) of the Courts of Justice Act to proceed with an application against the respondent municipality.

The applicant sought an order allowing him to construct a religious memorial on his mother's grave that exceeded the municipality's by-law size limits.

The court found that the application was an abuse of process, as it attempted to relitigate the exact same issues and claims that had been dismissed in multiple previous proceedings.

The application for leave to proceed was dismissed.

The applicant sought judicial review of an interim decision by the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, which held it lacked jurisdiction to hear a stand-alone Charter challenge regarding a Ministry of Transportation policy.

Before the judicial review was heard, the applicant succeeded on his Human Rights Code claim, obtained his driver's licence, and the Ministry revised the impugned policy.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application for judicial review on the basis of mootness, declining to exercise its discretion to hear the case as there was no longer an adversarial context and the issue was not evasive of review.

The applicant union sought an extension of time to bring an application for judicial review of an arbitral award that dismissed grievances regarding the discharge of employees who could not complete a new job rotation due to disabilities.

The application was brought more than eight months after the award, well beyond the 30-day time limit in section 5(1) of the Judicial Review Procedure Act.

The Divisional Court denied the extension of time under section 5(2), holding that the court retains discretion to consider the length of and explanation for the delay, and found the applicant's delay was lengthy and unexplained, and the grounds for relief were weak.

The respondent doctor brought a motion under s. 21(5) of the Courts of Justice Act to set aside an order granting Canadian Women in Medicine (CWIM) leave to intervene as a friend of the court in an application for judicial review.

The underlying judicial review concerned a decision by the College of Physicians and Surgeons to take no further action on a complaint alleging discriminatory hiring practices.

The Divisional Court majority granted the motion and set aside the intervention order, finding that the motion judge failed to consider whether CWIM's legal position was distinct from the applicant's and failed to recognize that the underlying matter was primarily a private administrative dispute.

A dissenting judge would have dismissed the motion, finding no palpable and overriding error in the motion judge's exercise of discretion.

The tenant appealed three decisions of the Landlord and Tenant Board relating to claims for damages and rent abatement due to excessive noise from adjacent units.

The Board had awarded a rent abatement and general damages, but dismissed a subsequent duplicative application based on res judicata.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding no errors of law in the Board's assessment of damages or its control of its own process.