SCJ 2021

The offender was convicted of second-degree murder for shooting the victim and subsequently dismembering and destroying the body.

The Crown sought a 23-year period of parole ineligibility, while the defence sought 14 years with a further reduction for Charter breaches related to prolonged administrative segregation.

The court found the egregious post-offence conduct and the offender's extensive criminal record warranted a 20-year parole ineligibility period.

The court also found that the offender's prolonged administrative segregation violated ss. 7 and 12 of the Charter, granting a 3-year reduction.

The final period of parole ineligibility was fixed at 17 years.

Following the dismissal of the plaintiff's action on summary judgment, the defendants sought full indemnity costs against the plaintiff and its principal personally.

The court found that the plaintiff's principal had fabricated an agreement of purchase and sale to support the claim, constituting an abuse of process.

The court awarded substantial indemnity costs to the defendants and held the principal jointly and severally liable for the costs due to his fraudulent conduct.

The applicant, an inmate at Grand Valley Institution for Women, applied for a writ of habeas corpus challenging the validity of her warrant of committal.

The respondent moved to dismiss the application as frivolous, vexatious, and an abuse of process.

The court found that the applicant was attempting to relitigate issues already decided against her by the Superior Court and the Court of Appeal.

The court dismissed the application summarily under the Criminal Proceedings Rules and declined to award costs, noting there is no jurisdiction to award costs in criminal habeas corpus matters.

The defendants moved to strike the plaintiffs' self-represented statement of claim, which alleged false arrest, malicious prosecution, and other torts arising from a high-profile arrest related to an alleged prostitution ring.

The court struck the claim against the Attorney General of Canada without leave to amend, finding no tenable cause of action.

The court also struck the claim against the RCMP due to pleading deficiencies, but granted the plaintiffs leave to deliver a fresh as amended statement of claim to properly particularize their causes of action.

Following the dismissal of the plaintiff's motions for leave to assert a statutory cause of action under the Securities Act and for certification of a class proceeding, the successful defendants sought costs of $363,184 on a partial indemnity basis.

The plaintiff argued for a reduced award of $250,000, citing the novelty and public interest of the case under s. 31(1) of the Class Proceedings Act, 1992.

The court agreed that the case raised a novel point of law and involved a matter of public interest, justifying a reduction in the costs award.

Costs were fixed at $285,000 all-inclusive.

Following a trial regarding decision-making responsibility for the parties' son, the successful applicant sought costs of $17,280.98.

The respondent did not file submissions.

The court considered the factors under Rule 24 of the Family Law Rules, noting the respondent's failure to attend a previous settlement conference and his insistence on a trial despite having no realistic chance of success.

However, the court also recognized that the respondent had consented to other parenting terms, narrowing the issues.

Costs were fixed at $12,000 inclusive of HST.

The Children's Aid Society brought a motion for summary judgment seeking a finding that a 14-year-old child was in need of protection, placement of the child with the father under a six-month supervision order, and access to the mother at the Society's discretion.

The mother opposed the protection finding and the access terms but failed to file responding materials.

The court applied the principles of summary judgment in child protection cases and found no genuine issue for trial.

The child was found in need of protection due to the mother's inability to meet his needs and manage his behavioural issues.

The court ordered the child placed with the father and granted access to the mother at the Society's discretion.

The appellant appealed his conviction for driving with a blood alcohol concentration over 80mg%.

He argued that the trial judge erred in finding that the breathalyzer technician had formed his own reasonable and probable grounds for the breathalyzer demand, and that he was arbitrarily detained between his arrest and the breathalyzer demand.

The Superior Court of Justice dismissed the appeal, finding no misapprehension of evidence regarding the technician's grounds and concluding that the detention was lawful under s. 497(1.1) of the Criminal Code to secure evidence.

The accused, a young Black man, was charged with firearms and drug offences and detained following a bail hearing.

A 90-day detention review was held under section 525 of the Criminal Code.

The reviewing judge found the justice of the peace erred by treating an uncertified substance as carfentanil and by failing to consider the accused's membership in a vulnerable population under section 493.2.

Concluding that continued detention was not necessary to maintain confidence in the administration of justice, the court ordered the accused's release on strict house arrest conditions with GPS monitoring and substantial sureties.

The plaintiff commenced an action against his real estate agent and brokerage, alleging the agent forged his signature on a waiver of a home inspection condition.

This same allegation of forgery had been previously raised by the plaintiff and rejected by a judge in an earlier application brought by the vendor to keep the plaintiff's deposit.

The defendants moved to strike the statement of claim as an abuse of process and barred by issue estoppel.

The court granted the motion, finding that the core issue was identical to the one already decided, the plaintiff had the opportunity to appeal the prior decision but did not, and allowing the claim to proceed would be an abuse of process.

The offender was convicted of dangerous driving causing death and dangerous driving causing bodily harm after striking two cyclists on the shoulder of the road.

The court found the offender engaged in a prolonged pattern of dangerous driving, including speeding, tailgating, and driving while prohibited.

Emphasizing denunciation and deterrence, the court sentenced the offender to four years' imprisonment on each count to be served concurrently, along with a lifetime driving prohibition.

The Crown brought an application to admit several ante mortem statements made by the deceased prior to his alleged murder by the accused.

The statements included a Facebook post, comments to a friend about the accused's drinking, text messages and a phone call to another friend, and utterances made during an altercation shortly before the death.

The court applied the principled exception to the hearsay rule, assessing necessity and threshold reliability.

The court admitted the text messages and certain utterances made during the altercation, but excluded the Facebook post, the phone call, and a comment about the accused's medication due to lack of reliability, lack of necessity, and high prejudicial effect.

The Crown brought a motion for default judgment seeking a declaration that the Aylmer Church's conveyance of real property to the Lethbridge Church was fraudulent and void.

The Aylmer Church had transferred the property for nominal consideration shortly after being ordered to pay substantial fines and costs for contempt of court related to COVID-19 public health orders.

The court found multiple badges of fraud, including a non-arm's length transfer, suspicious timing, grossly inadequate consideration, and retained beneficial use.

The motion was granted, the conveyance was declared void, and the lands were made subject to execution by the Crown.

Following a successful motion for summary judgment, the plaintiffs sought costs on a substantial indemnity basis relying on a Rule 49 offer to settle.

The defendants argued no costs should be awarded and objected to duplicative billing.

The court found the plaintiffs were entitled to substantial indemnity costs from the date of their offer but reduced the quantum to account for unnecessary duplication, fixing costs at $23,000 inclusive of disbursements and HST.

The accused was charged with sexual assault and two counts of assault against his wife.

The complainant alleged the offences occurred on New Year's Eve 2017 but did not report them to police until October 2018, during a marital separation and concurrent family court proceedings for sole custody of their child.

The court found the timing and circumstances of the disclosure, along with inconsistencies in the complainant's accounts, provided a powerful motive to fabricate and raised a reasonable doubt.

The accused was found not guilty on all counts.

The defendants (purchasers) brought a motion for summary judgment against the plaintiff (builder/vendor) for the return of their deposit and damages following a failed real estate transaction.

The plaintiff had elected to affirm the Agreement of Purchase and Sale after an anticipatory repudiation by the defendants, keeping the closing date alive.

On the closing date, the defendants tendered the closing funds, but the plaintiff failed to provide a substantially completed home ready for occupancy.

The court found the plaintiff in fundamental breach of the agreement, entitling the defendants to terminate the contract.

The defendants were awarded the return of their $55,000 deposit and $25,000 in damages for the costs of borrowing the closing funds.

Following a wiretap prosecution involving multiple accused, the court considered conspiracy, firearms trafficking by offer, drug trafficking conspiracy, robbery conspiracy, and criminal organization allegations arising from intercepted jail and street communications.

The court acquitted on the firearm conspiracy counts after finding a reasonable doubt whether one accused merely pretended to agree, but convicted that accused of offering to transfer a firearm because he made a genuine-looking offer perceived as such by the recipient.

A co-accused's guilty plea to conspiracy to traffic in a controlled substance was narrowed on the facts to cocaine rather than heroin.

The court rejected the robbery conspiracy and criminal organization allegations, holding the evidence showed loosely connected criminal conduct and friendship networks rather than the structure, continuity, and cohesion required for a criminal organization.

The applicant, a young Black man, brought a Charter application to exclude a loaded handgun found in his satchel during a search incident to an investigative detention in an apartment.

The court found that the police lacked reasonable grounds for the search, concluding that one officer's testimony about the applicant attempting to conceal the satchel was untruthful.

The court permitted cross-examination of the officer on prior judicial findings of untruthfulness and concluded that racial profiling played a substantial role in the police conduct.

Finding a serious breach of section 8 of the Charter, the court excluded the firearm under section 24(2).

The applicant father brought a motion for an interim order to expand his parenting time to a shared parenting schedule and to clarify communication for decision-making.

The respondent mother opposed the shared parenting schedule and proposed an alternative schedule.

The court found that the mother's proposed schedule was in the very young child's best interests, providing consistency while expanding the father's parenting time.

The court also ordered the father's requested terms regarding communication for decision-making and changed the exchange location to a police station to minimize conflict.

The plaintiff was severely assaulted by another customer in the vestibule of a TD Bank ATM late at night.

The plaintiff sued TD Bank for negligence and breach of the Occupier's Liability Act, alleging inadequate security measures.

TD brought a motion for summary judgment to dismiss the action.

After conducting a voir dire to determine the admissibility of five expert reports, the court found that the assault was a random, unforeseeable event and that TD's security measures were reasonable for a low-risk branch.

The court granted summary judgment and dismissed the action against TD.