Roy R. McMurtry

The appellant appealed an order dismissing its motion for summary judgment.

The Court of Appeal quashed the appeal, finding that the order was interlocutory.

The Court noted that while the motion judge discussed the legal issue of absolute privilege attaching to a lawyer's letter, the order simply dismissed the summary judgment motion and would not bind the trial judge.

The police received a 911 call about black men with handguns outside a strip club and set up a roadblock to stop all vehicles leaving the parking lot.

The appellants, who did not match the descriptions provided, were stopped, detained, and searched, leading to the discovery of loaded handguns.

The Court of Appeal held that the roadblock stop was an unconstitutional exercise of ancillary police powers, resulting in arbitrary detention and unreasonable search and seizure.

The handguns were excluded from evidence under s. 24(2) of the Charter due to the seriousness of the breaches and systemic police training failures, and acquittals were entered.

The appellant appealed the dismissal of its Superior Court action, which the motion judge had found to be an abuse of process for raising the same issues as an earlier Small Claims Court action.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding that despite the appellant's contradictory affidavits, the legal issues in the two actions were not identical or substantially the same.

However, due to the appellant's inaccurate affidavit, costs of the appeal and the motion were awarded to the respondent.

The appellant surety appealed a trial judgment enforcing a customs bond in favour of the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (CCRA).

The appellant argued the CCRA failed to produce relevant documentation to substantiate the claim.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that section 107 of the Customs Act precluded the CCRA from disclosing importer names to the surety, and that the production of summaries and a dishonoured cheque satisfied the bond's disclosure requirements.

The court varied the judgment only to correct the principal amount upon which interest was calculated.

The appellants appealed an order of the motion judge regarding a real estate offer.

The Court of Appeal found no palpable or overriding error, agreeing that the offer presented did not meet the requirements of a prior court order because it was conditional and not at arm's length.

The appeal on the merits and the appeal as to costs were both dismissed.

The appellants appealed an order finding that a debt to Kroll had been established and that the bankruptcy petitions were not filed for an improper purpose.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that there was evidence to support the trial judge's findings and no basis to interfere.

The Crown appealed a summary conviction appeal court's order requiring it to pay $12,000 in costs to the respondent.

The respondent had successfully avoided a minimum jail sentence for impaired driving after the summary conviction appeal court stayed the sentence, despite finding the minimum penalty provision constitutional.

The summary conviction appeal court awarded costs against the Crown, characterizing the appeal as a test case.

The Court of Appeal allowed the Crown's appeal and set aside the costs order, finding that the appeal was not a test case as the respondent had a vital personal interest in avoiding incarceration, and there was no Crown misconduct to justify the award.

The appellant appealed his assault conviction.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that the trial judge's findings—that the appellant undertook to protect the complainant and that her dependence on him for necessities made her particularly vulnerable to his influence—were supported by the evidence and warranted a conviction.

The Minister of Finance appealed a decision declaring that the locker rooms and coaches' rooms used by professional sports teams (the Blue Jays, Maple Leafs, and Raptors) during away games outside Ontario constituted 'permanent establishments' under the Employer Health Tax Act.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding that the teams' use of away venues was too transitory to be considered a fixed place of business.

Furthermore, the sports equipment brought to these venues did not qualify as 'substantial machinery or equipment' under the Act.

The appellant appealed his long-term offender designation, his three-year custodial sentence, and his ten-year long-term supervision order imposed following his conviction for two bank robberies.

He argued that his s. 11(b) Charter rights were violated due to sentencing delay, that the trial judge failed to recognize her discretion to impose a determinate sentence, and that the predicate offences were not serious personal injury offences.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no unreasonable delay, proper exercise of sentencing discretion, and sufficient evidence that the robberies inflicted or were likely to inflict severe psychological damage.

The appellant appealed his conviction for the attempted murder of his daughter, arguing that the Crown's opening address was improper.

He submitted that the opening did not faithfully describe the evidence and improperly referenced cultural considerations, encouraging the jury to rely on negative stereotypes.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the variation between the opening and the evidence was minor and the comments regarding cultural considerations were not improper.

The appellant appealed his robbery convictions, arguing they were unreasonable because the Crown's case relied entirely on an unrecorded inculpatory statement made to police while in custody.

The appellant contended that any conviction based exclusively on an unrecorded statement should be presumptively unreasonable.

The Court of Appeal rejected this per se rule, holding that while a proper recording assists the trier of fact, its absence does not automatically render a statement inadmissible or a conviction unreasonable.

The court also dismissed arguments regarding the trial judge's failure to give specific jury cautions about the unrecorded statement and hearsay evidence.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant was convicted of sexual assault and unlawful confinement.

He appealed the conviction, arguing that the trial judge erred in his jury instructions regarding the complainant's prior inconsistent statements.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that while the trial judge did not adhere to model jury instructions and made a factual error regarding a cell phone, the instructions as a whole made it clear how the jury could use the prior inconsistent statements to assess credibility, and the error was not prejudicial.

The appellant appealed the sentence imposed by the trial judge, arguing that the judge erred in rejecting a joint submission and in imposing a disparate sentence compared to the co-accused.

The Court of Appeal found no error in principle, noting the sentencing judge gave sufficient reasons for departing from the joint submission and that the discrepancy in sentences was justified by differences in prior criminal records and levels of involvement.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant appealed a decision of a Justice of the Peace.

The Court of Appeal found that the Justice of the Peace misapprehended the evidence, which materially influenced the decision to reject the appellant's evidence.

The appeal was allowed and a new trial was ordered.

The appellant's appeal was dismissed as abandoned by the Court of Appeal for Ontario.

The appellant appealed his conviction and sentence.

He argued the trial judge erred in assessing the credibility of an accomplice's evidence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding that the trial judge properly instructed himself on the danger of accepting accomplice evidence and that the confirmatory evidence was overwhelming.

The sentence appeal was dismissed as abandoned.

The appellant appealed convictions for indecent assault arising from a jury trial on multiple sexual offence counts involving family members.

The appeal turned on whether the trial judge properly admitted similar fact evidence from an additional witness and whether the evidence on each count was admissible across all other counts.

Applying the post-trial framework in the Supreme Court authorities on similar fact evidence, the court held that the issue had been defined too broadly as credibility and that the alleged acts lacked the necessary persuasive degree of connection across all counts.

The prejudicial effect of the impugned evidence outweighed its probative value on several counts.

The appeal was allowed, the convictions were set aside, and a new trial was ordered.

The appellants sought a stay of execution on a default judgment of approximately $57,000 that had stood unchallenged for over twelve years.

The Court of Appeal applied the RJR-MacDonald test and found no serious issue to be tried, no irreparable harm, and that the balance of convenience favoured refusing the stay.

The appeal from the Divisional Court order was dismissed.

The appellant appealed from an order of the Superior Court of Justice.

The Court of Appeal found that although the material before the motion judge was somewhat deficient, there was no palpable and overriding error in her reasons.

The appeal was dismissed with costs fixed at $4,500.