SCJ 2021

The applicant mother brought a motion for temporary child support.

The respondent father had been unemployed since 2017 and owned a vacant, mortgage-free rental property.

The court found the father had not made reasonable efforts to gain employment or utilize his property to generate income promptly upon separation.

The court imputed an income of $58,000 to the father for 2020 and ordered him to pay $13,776 in child support for that year, with ongoing support based on his new $100,000 salary.

Two competing class counsel groups sought carriage of a proposed class action against the Province of Ontario regarding COVID-19 outbreaks in long-term care homes.

The Nisbet Action proposed suing Ontario solely for its several liability to avoid third-party claims and expedite certification.

The Robertson Action proposed a conventional joint and several liability approach, expecting third-party claims between Ontario and long-term care operators.

The court granted carriage to the Robertson Action, finding that the several liability approach offered no early-stage advantage and would create significant disadvantages in later-stage litigation, including potential unfairness to the defendant and risks of unrecovered losses for class members.

The appellant appealed a property standards order requiring him to remove hoarded items, waste, and debris from his front porch.

The appellant, who lives on his porch year-round, argued the City was harassing him and that his collected items were not garbage.

The Superior Court of Justice found the items violated the municipal by-law and created an unsafe and unsanitary hazard.

The court upheld the order but modified it to specify that only one small welcome mat, one chair, and one side table fabricated for outdoor use could remain on the porch.

The plaintiffs brought an action to rescind a settlement agreement, alleging the defendant fraudulently inflated the company's revenue prior to the plaintiff purchasing the defendant's shares.

The defendants moved to strike the action as an abuse of process based on a full and final release signed during the settlement.

The plaintiffs moved for an interlocutory injunction to prevent the defendants from enforcing the settlement agreement's default provisions.

The court dismissed the motion to strike, finding a strong prima facie case of fraud that was not contemplated by the release.

The court granted the interlocutory injunction, finding the plaintiffs would suffer irreparable harm if the defendant returned to the business.

The applicant mortgagor defaulted on a mortgage and the respondent mortgagees commenced power of sale proceedings.

The mortgagor requested a discharge statement under s. 22 of the Mortgages Act, which the mortgagees refused to provide, claiming the mortgagor was stalling.

The mortgagees then sold the property to a third party.

The court held that the mortgagees had no reasonable excuse to refuse the discharge statement, meaning their enforcement rights were suspended under s. 22(3).

Consequently, the sale to the third party was invalid.

The court rejected the argument that ss. 35 and 36 of the Mortgages Act or s. 99(1.1) of the Land Titles Act protected the third party purchaser's title from a breach of s. 22.

The plaintiffs moved for an interim order to preserve the proceeds of sale of a property, an accounting of assets, and a sworn statement of assets from the defendants.

This is the second action against the defendant regarding a $250,000 loan.

The plaintiffs allege the defendant used the loan to help pay for a property registered in his former wife's name.

The defendant did not participate in the motion.

The court found insufficient evidence that the plaintiffs' funds were diverted to the property or that the defendant received the proceeds of its sale.

The motion was dismissed against the defendant without prejudice, and dismissed against the former wife on consent that she provide a trust ledger from the property's sale.

The respondent father brought a motion to vary a temporary consent order for child and spousal support, arguing his commission-based income was decimated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The court found it had jurisdiction to vary the temporary order in these exceptional circumstances.

Recognizing the unprecedented economic impact of the pandemic, the court varied support retroactively to June 2020 based on the father's reduced 2020 income and implemented a novel mechanism requiring support to be adjusted every four months based on his annualized income for the preceding period.

The defendant, the Attorney General of Canada, moved for summary judgment to dismiss the plaintiff's $2,000,000 action for breach of contract, quantum meruit, and unjust enrichment.

The plaintiff, a contractor, sought additional payment for delays and increased costs incurred during a window replacement project at a maximum-security penitentiary.

The court granted the motion and dismissed the action, finding that the plaintiff failed to comply with the mandatory dispute resolution and notice provisions under the general contract after the government rejected its claim.

Following a successful summary judgment motion where the plaintiffs were awarded $358,900, the court determined the scale and quantum of costs.

The plaintiffs sought costs on a partial and substantial indemnity scale based on an unrevoked Rule 49 settlement offer.

The court found the offer triggered Rule 49 consequences and awarded the plaintiffs $90,000 in fees plus disbursements and taxes, applying principles of indemnity and proportionality.

In a youth prosecution for second degree murder arising from a fatal shooting at Dundas Square, the Crown brought a Leaney application seeking leave to adduce recognition evidence from several non-expert witnesses based on surveillance footage and images recovered from seized mobile phones.

The court applied the threshold admissibility principles governing recognition evidence, focusing on the witnesses' prior acquaintance and whether they were in a better position than the trier of fact to identify the persons depicted.

The court permitted recognition evidence from one investigating officer as to the accused and another individual, and from another officer as to a third individual, but excluded the proposed recognition evidence of three other witnesses for insufficient familiarity.

The ruling distinguished threshold admissibility from ultimate reliability, leaving reliability to the trier of fact.

The self-represented plaintiff requested an adjournment of a scheduled case conference, submitting a brief medical note stating she was unable to attend court proceedings due to an ongoing disability.

The defendants opposed an indefinite abeyance, arguing the note lacked details on prognosis or necessary accommodations.

The court adjourned the case conference for a short period, directing the plaintiff to provide more extensive medical evidence of her disability and to propose reasonable accommodations, noting that the litigation could not be delayed indefinitely.

Sentencing decision following convictions for sexual assault causing bodily harm and threatening death arising from a violent sexual assault by a male roommate against a young woman in her bedroom and kitchen.

The defence advanced cannabis intoxication and major depressive disorder as mitigating factors through social work and psychiatric opinion evidence, but the court rejected those positions because the offender's self-reporting was inconsistent and unreliable.

The court emphasized denunciation and deterrence in light of the violent invasion of the victim's living space, bodily harm to her wrists, threats to kill her into silence, and lasting psychological harm.

A suspended sentence or conditional sentence was held to be manifestly unfit, and a global penitentiary sentence of three years was imposed with ancillary DNA, firearm prohibition, SOIRA, and no-contact orders.

The appellant appealed a Consent and Capacity Board decision upholding a finding of incapacity and a Community Treatment Order (CTO).

By the time of the appeal, the CTO had expired and two subsequent CTOs had been issued, including one based on a new capacity assessment rather than the prior CTOs.

The Superior Court of Justice dismissed the appeal as moot, finding that a decision would have no practical effect on the appellant's rights and no special circumstances warranted hearing the appeal.

The appellant appealed a Consent and Capacity Board decision confirming his community treatment order and upholding the finding that he was incapable of consenting to antipsychotic medication and his community treatment plan.

The Superior Court found the appeal regarding the community treatment order was moot because it had expired and a new order was issued under different statutory criteria.

The court also held the Board made no palpable and overriding error in finding the appellant incapable of consenting to treatment, as there was sufficient evidence he could not appreciate the reasonably foreseeable consequences of his treatment decisions.

The applicant brought a motion to find the respondent in contempt of several court orders, including a non-depletion order.

The respondent brought a cross-motion for the sale of the jointly owned matrimonial home.

The court dismissed the contempt motion, finding that while the respondent breached the non-depletion order by drawing on a line of credit, other adequate remedies were available under the Family Law Rules.

The court granted the respondent's motion for the sale of the matrimonial home, ordering that the respondent repay the depleted funds from his share of the proceeds.

The defendant insurer brought a motion for summary judgment to dismiss the plaintiff's action for coverage of water damage to her property.

The insurer argued that the policy's vacancy exclusion applied because the plaintiff, who had moved to a retirement home due to cognitive impairment, had no intention of returning.

The court found that the plaintiff lacked the capacity to form an intention to return and that there was no objective plan for her to do so.

The court concluded there was no genuine issue for trial regarding the vacancy exclusion and granted the summary judgment motion, dismissing the action.

Two school boards applied for a declaration that the force majeure clauses in their commercial leases with the respondent landlord applied to abate rent during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown from March 17, 2020, to August 11, 2020.

The landlord argued the clauses excused it from providing the premises but did not excuse the tenants from paying rent.

The court applied principles of contract interpretation and found that the pandemic-induced government lockdown was a triggering event that prevented the landlord from providing the leased space.

Under the specific wording of the leases, this excused the landlord's performance and abated the tenants' rent obligations for the lockdown period.

The application was granted.

The plaintiffs moved for an interlocutory injunction to prohibit the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) from enforcing the deemed terminations of 34 Feed-In Tariff (FIT) contracts and discontinuing payments.

The court found that the motion was an impermissible collateral attack on prior court orders that had deemed the contracts terminated.

Furthermore, the plaintiffs sought a mandatory injunction but failed to establish a strong prima facie case, as the issues of termination had been decided in prior litigation.

The court also found the plaintiffs' evidence of irreparable harm to be speculative.

The motion for an interlocutory injunction was dismissed.

The plaintiffs brought a motion to compel the defendants to answer fifteen refusals from examinations for discovery and written interrogatories.

The underlying action involves an environmental investigation.

The court reviewed each refusal, upholding several on the basis of solicitor-client privilege, proportionality, and sufficient prior answers, while ordering the defendants to answer others, including clarifying transcript discrepancies and conducting specific email searches.

The motion was granted in part.

The appellant appealed his conviction for operating a conveyance with a blood alcohol concentration over the legal limit.

He argued that the police violated his right to counsel of choice under s. 10(b) of the Charter by failing to wait a reasonable amount of time for his preferred lawyer to call back and by improperly influencing him to speak with duty counsel instead.

The Summary Conviction Appeal Court agreed, finding that the police failed to take reasonable steps to contact his counsel of choice and interfered with his right by suggesting he speak with duty counsel.

The court excluded the breath test results under s. 24(2) of the Charter, noting a systemic problem with police failing to respect the right to counsel of choice, and dismissed the charge.