SCJ 2022

The plaintiff brought a motion for summary judgment for an unpaid commercial account for animal feed supplied to the defendant's dairy goat farm.

The defendant disputed the debt, alleging the feed was defective, caused health issues and death in his herd, and claimed an equitable set-off for lost profits.

The court granted summary judgment, finding the plaintiff proved the debt and the 30% annual simple interest rate.

The court dismissed the defences, noting the defendant failed to provide expert evidence linking the feed to the herd's health issues or financial evidence to support the set-off claim.

The Crown brought a pre-trial application to admit statements made by the accused during a nine-month undercover police investigation involving a police agent and an undercover officer.

The accused was charged with three homicides, a bank robbery, and a car bombing.

The court applied the framework from R. v. Hart and found that the statements met the threshold for reliability, their probative value outweighed their prejudicial effect, and the police conduct did not amount to an abuse of process.

The statements were ruled admissible.

The plaintiff brought a motion to find the defendant in contempt of a previous court order requiring him to publish an apology for defamatory statements on social media.

The defendant failed to properly publish the apology until the hearing itself.

The court found the defendant in contempt but noted he had purged it during the hearing.

The defendant was sentenced to a conditional discharge with 12 months of probation, prohibiting him from repeating defamatory statements, and was ordered to pay costs on a full indemnity scale.

The applicant, charged with manslaughter, brought a pre-trial motion for a stay of proceedings alleging unreasonable delay under s. 11(b) of the Charter.

The total delay from charge to the anticipated end of trial was approximately 48 months.

After deducting defence delay and delay caused by the co-accused's counsel's unavailability, the net delay was approximately 34.38 months, slightly above the presumptive ceiling.

The court dismissed the application, finding the Crown successfully rebutted the presumption of unreasonableness due to exceptional circumstances, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the unexpected illness of a key Crown witness and assigned Crown counsel, and the complexity of the joint trial.

The defendant brought a motion under Rule 25.11 to strike out portions of the plaintiff's Fresh as Amended Statement of Claim.

The plaintiff's claim alleged breach of contract and breach of the duty of good faith contractual performance following the termination of his exclusive service contract.

The defendant argued that certain paragraphs were scandalous, irrelevant, or pleaded evidence rather than material facts.

The court granted the motion in part, striking out allegations relating to the defendant's treatment of other contractors and the termination of another employee, finding them irrelevant and prejudicial to the fair trial of the action.

However, the court refused to strike out paragraphs pleading the precise words of conversations on the day the plaintiff was told to leave the building, finding them relevant to the allegations of malice and bad faith.

The defendant, Her Majesty the Queen in right of Ontario (HMQ), brought a motion to strike the plaintiffs' statements of claim in two actions arising from a fire that destroyed a school.

The plaintiffs alleged that the Office of the Fire Marshal (OFM) was negligent in failing to ensure a proper fire watch was in place after the initial fire was extinguished, leading to a rekindling that caused extensive damage.

The court found that the Fire Protection and Prevention Act, 1997 does not impose a duty on the OFM to post a fire watch or suppress fires, as those duties belong to municipal fire departments.

The court struck the negligence and nuisance claims against HMQ but granted the plaintiffs leave to amend their pleadings to properly allege a duty of care based on specific interactions or assumption of control, provided the alleged duty does not exceed the OFM's statutory powers.

The guardians of an incapable person moved to amend a management plan to allow for the sale of a property co-owned by the incapable person and her spouse.

The spouse, a non-party who had previously financially exploited the incapable person, opposed the sale indirectly through the incapable person.

The court found the incapable person's opposition was unreliable and the product of the spouse's influence.

The court granted the motion, ordering the sale of the property as it was in the incapable person's best interests.

The court also ordered costs on a full indemnity basis to be paid from the proceeds of the sale prior to distribution, effectively making the non-party spouse liable for half the costs due to his gross misconduct.

Following the dismissal of Hockey Canada's motion to withdraw an affidavit and the vacating of its summary judgment motion, the plaintiff sought costs.

The plaintiff claimed partial indemnity costs for the motion and full indemnity for costs thrown away, totaling over $70,000.

The court found the plaintiff's claimed hours excessive due to duplication of work by multiple timekeepers and determined that some work done for the summary judgment motion could be repurposed for trial.

The court fixed the costs payable by Hockey Canada to the plaintiff at $25,000 all-inclusive.

The appellants, Trafalgar Insurance and Economical Insurance, appealed an arbitrator's decision in a priority dispute regarding statutory accident benefits.

The arbitrator had found that Arch Insurance was not the insurer of the vehicle involved in the accident because the vehicle was not owned or leased by Arch's named insured, despite being mistakenly listed on a fleet schedule.

The Superior Court of Justice dismissed the appeal, finding no palpable and overriding error or error of law in the arbitrator's conclusion that the vehicle did not qualify as a 'described vehicle' under the OPCF 21A endorsement.

A related costs appeal was also dismissed as premature.

The applicant municipality sought an interlocutory injunction to prevent the respondent municipality from making new connections to its water and sanitary sewer systems, pending the resolution of a dispute over an expired services agreement.

The court applied the RJR-MacDonald test and found that while there was a serious issue to be tried, the applicant failed to establish irreparable harm and the balance of convenience favoured permitting three specific new development connections.

The injunction was granted on consent for all other new connections, with the three specific developments exempted.

The moving defendants brought a motion on consent of all parties to transfer the action from St. Thomas to Toronto.

The action arose from a syndicated mortgage investment for a property in St. Thomas.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that none of the parties were located in Toronto and the only connection to Toronto was the location of counsel's offices.

The court held that the convenience of counsel is not a sufficient basis to transfer an action under Rule 13.1.02.

The applicant mother sought an uncontested divorce, sole decision-making responsibility, and child support.

The respondent father failed to respond or provide financial disclosure despite multiple court orders.

The court granted the applicant sole decision-making responsibility and primary residence, noting a history of family violence and the respondent's abdication of parenting responsibilities.

The court drew an adverse inference from the respondent's failure to disclose income, imputed his annual income at $54,000, and ordered him to pay $823 per month in child support plus arrears.

The Crown sought to qualify an OPP officer as an expert witness to interpret coded text messages and provide context on the illicit drug trade in a trial for drug trafficking and manslaughter.

The defence did not contest the admissibility of the evidence but reserved the right to cross-examine on potential bias.

The court applied the Mohan and White Burgess frameworks, finding the proposed evidence logically relevant, necessary, and the officer properly qualified.

The officer was qualified to provide opinion evidence on the indicia of trafficking, street values of drugs, and the interpretation of coded language.

The plaintiff property owner contracted the defendant roofing company to install a new roof on an apartment building.

Following the installation, the roof experienced significant leaking and drainage issues.

The plaintiff's expert engineer concluded the roof was poorly installed, not properly secured, and posed a public safety hazard.

The plaintiff subsequently sold the building, agreeing to a $200,000 reduction in the purchase price due to the defective roof.

The court found the defendant breached the contract and was negligent in its installation, awarding the plaintiff $203,329.98 in damages for the price reduction and interim repair costs.

The respondent mother brought a motion to change a 2017 consent order to reinstate parenting time with her child, which had been suspended since 2020.

The mother struggled with severe substance abuse, mental health issues, and instability, and exhibited inappropriate behaviour during the virtual trial.

The court applied the best interests of the child test under section 24 of the Children's Law Reform Act.

Finding that the mother's current instability posed a risk to the child's safety and well-being, the court dismissed the motion to change, maintaining the suspension of parenting time.

Following the dismissal of the plaintiff's product liability action for failing to participate at trial, the successful defendant sought costs of $139,739.85 plus disbursements on a substantial indemnity basis.

The court rejected the request for substantial indemnity costs, finding that the defendant's offers to settle did not trigger Rule 49 consequences and the plaintiff's conduct did not warrant an elevated scale.

Noting that the defendant was represented by in-house counsel who did not docket time, and that the amount claimed was excessive with duplication of effort, the court fixed costs on a partial indemnity scale at $36,000 plus HST and $7,752.05 in disbursements.

The parties in a certified class proceeding regarding purchasers of hotel units in the Trump Tower sought a consent order approving the form and content of the proposed Notice of Settlement Approval Hearing.

The court reviewed the proposed notice plan, which included direct mail, email, a dedicated website, and a Facebook page to reach geographically dispersed class members.

Finding the notice and notice plan satisfactory under section 27.1(8) of the Class Proceedings Act, 1992, the court granted the order.

The applicant sought to re-open a prior decision regarding mortgage priorities to raise a new legal argument under s. 93(4) of the Land Titles Act, which it had neglected to raise at the original hearing.

The court had previously determined the priority issue but reserved jurisdiction solely for a trial on allegations of fraud.

The court dismissed the applicant's request, holding that allowing a new legal argument on an issue already determined would offend the public policy goal of finality and the doctrine of functus officio.

The moving party brought a motion to compel the responding party to produce pre-July 2015 plant data and answer written discovery questions pursuant to a prior consent order.

The responding party brought a cross-motion to compel the moving party to answer written questions.

The court ordered the responding party to produce the plant data, with the moving party to pay 50% of the production costs up to $25,000.

The court also interpreted the prior consent order broadly, directing both parties to answer all refused written discovery questions relating to the amended pleadings.

The applicant, a 50% shareholder and director of a restaurant corporation, brought an application for an oppression remedy against his brother (the other 50% shareholder) and his sister-in-law.

The respondents had negotiated a lease buyout without the applicant's knowledge, deposited the proceeds into a separate account, and diverted funds to the sister-in-law under a fabricated security agreement.

The court found that the respondents' actions breached the applicant's reasonable expectations under the unanimous shareholder agreement and constituted oppression.

The court ordered an accounting, the discharge of the security agreement, and the return of diverted funds to a trust account.