Administrative Law - SCJ

The applicant sought a declaration that an access road to his property was a public road that the Township was obligated to maintain, and an order requiring its restoration.

The road had become impassable due to flooding caused by the Ministry of Transportation's removal of a culvert during highway reconstruction.

The court found the road was a public highway through historical dedication and acceptance.

The court held that the Ministry's actions caused the flooding, amounting to both injurious affection and de facto expropriation by landlocking the property.

The Ministry was ordered to restore the culverts and indemnify the Township for restoring the road, failing which the property would be deemed expropriated, allowing the applicant to seek compensation at the Ontario Land Tribunal.

The appellant appealed a Consent and Capacity Board decision finding him incapable of consenting to a community treatment plan and antipsychotic medications.

The Superior Court of Justice allowed the appeal, finding the Board committed a palpable and overriding error.

The treating psychiatrist could not recall informing the appellant of the benefits and consequences of the proposed treatment during the assessment, meaning the presumption of capacity was not displaced.

Furthermore, the community treatment plan was fatally defective because it was signed before the appellant was examined.

The applicant brought an application to quash a resolution and by-law passed by the respondent municipality to conditionally appoint a member to fill a potential council vacancy.

The vacancy was anticipated because a sitting councillor was running in a provincial election.

The court found that the Municipal Act requires a vacancy to actually exist and be declared before an appointment can be made.

The resolution and by-law were quashed for illegality as they were passed without jurisdiction.

The appellant appealed a Consent and Capacity Board decision confirming her incapacity to consent to a community treatment plan and upholding a community treatment order.

The appellant, who has a history of bipolar disorder, argued the Board applied the wrong legal test for capacity and that the treatment plan was overbroad regarding mobility and marijuana use.

The Superior Court of Justice dismissed the appeal, finding the Board correctly applied the test from Starson v. Swayze and made no palpable and overriding error in its factual findings or its interpretation of the treatment plan.

The Ontario Securities Commission applied to continue Freeze Directions over five trading accounts owned by the respondent, which allegedly contained proceeds of insider trading based on material non-public information.

The respondent opposed the continuation, arguing a lack of admissible evidence.

The court applied the low evidentiary threshold from Future Solar and found sufficient evidence to meet the three-part test, continuing the Freeze Directions until October 31, 2022, or the conclusion of proceedings.

The appellant appealed a decision of the Consent and Capacity Board upholding her involuntary status and finding her incapable of consenting to antipsychotic medications.

The appellant, who represented herself, argued that the Board failed to adequately consider her foresight regarding the risks of the medications and her prior capable wishes.

The Superior Court of Justice applied the palpable and overriding error standard of review and found that the Board made no reviewable errors in concluding that the appellant's mental disorder prevented her from appreciating the reasonably foreseeable consequences of the treatment decision.

The appeal was dismissed.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario sought costs following successful applications against three physicians who failed to cooperate with regulatory investigations related to COVID-19.

The court rejected arguments that the respondents were public interest litigants or entitled to costs despite partial success.

Costs were awarded to the applicant on a partial indemnity scale against all three respondents, totaling approximately $40,000.

The applicant, who was subject to a security certificate under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, brought an application for habeas corpus in the Superior Court to challenge the conditions of his release imposed by the Federal Court.

The Minister brought a motion to stay the application.

The Superior Court granted the motion and stayed the application, finding that the Federal Court's security certificate scheme is a complete, comprehensive, and expert statutory procedure that is as advantageous as habeas corpus, and therefore the Peiroo exception applies.

The applicant lawyer commenced an application seeking to halt a Law Society of Ontario investigation into complaints regarding his social media posts, and claiming damages against the LSO and the individual complainants.

The respondents moved to strike the application.

The court dismissed the application on the basis that it was improperly commenced by Notice of Application rather than a Statement of Claim.

In the alternative, the court held it would have struck the applicant's pleadings in their entirety without leave to amend under Rule 25.11, finding them to be scandalous, frivolous, vexatious, and an abuse of process.

The applicant widow brought a constitutional challenge against the eligibility criteria for liver transplants, arguing that the requirement for patients with alcohol-related liver disease to demonstrate abstinence or undergo rigorous multidisciplinary screening discriminated against them on the basis of their alcohol use disorder.

The court found that while the estate had standing to bring the claim, the challenge to the historical six-month sobriety rule was moot.

On the merits of the current criteria, the court held there was no violation of sections 15(1), 7, or 12 of the Charter, as the criteria were based on the best available medical evidence to allocate scarce organs to those most likely to have successful outcomes.

The court also found that the living donor program criteria were clinical policies not subject to Charter scrutiny.

The appellant appealed a decision of a Reference Judge upholding the Chief Firearms Officer's refusal to renew his firearms licence.

The refusal was based on three past incidents of alleged domestic violence that resulted in criminal charges, which were ultimately withdrawn but led to two peace bonds.

The appellant argued the Firearms Officer unreasonably relied on unsworn police reports and withdrawn charges.

The Superior Court of Justice dismissed the appeal, finding that the Firearms Officer reasonably considered the cumulative effect of the incidents and peace bonds in determining that issuing the licence was not in the interests of public safety.

The applicant filed a constitutional challenge to s. 163(3) of the Correctional and Conditional Release Regulations, arguing it permitted the Parole Board of Canada to indefinitely defer post-suspension hearings for provincial inmates awaiting federal transfer.

After the application was filed, the Board held the applicant's hearing, rendering the application moot.

The court exercised its discretion to hear the moot application, finding an ongoing adversarial context, strong grounds, special circumstances transcending the applicant's interest due to the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on transfers, and a need to conserve judicial resources by resolving a recurring issue evasive of review.

The defendants moved to strike the self-represented plaintiff's statement of claim under Rules 21.01(1)(b) and 25.11.

The claim arose from the College's investigation and disposition of the plaintiff's complaint against a physician.

The court found the statement of claim was devoid of material facts and failed to articulate any recognized cause of action.

Furthermore, section 36(3) of the Regulated Health Professions Act rendered the allegations incapable of proof, and section 38 provided statutory immunity to the College.

The statement of claim was struck without leave to amend.

The applicant, a declared vexatious litigant, sought leave under s. 140(3) of the Courts of Justice Act to bring an application for judicial review against the Health Services Appeal Review Board.

The Board had previously informed the applicant that it lacked jurisdiction to hear his appeal regarding OHIP's refusal to pre-approve funding for a psychiatric assessment.

The court, on its own initiative under Rule 2.1.01(1), dismissed the application for leave as an abuse of process, finding that the Board had made no statutory decision subject to judicial review.

The applicants, federal inmates, applied for habeas corpus seeking transfers to minimum-security institutions.

The respondent, the Attorney General of Canada, brought a motion under Rule 2.1.01 of the Rules of Civil Procedure to summarily dismiss the applications as frivolous, arguing that a refusal to transfer to a lower security classification does not constitute a deprivation of liberty.

The court dismissed the motion, noting that jurisprudence is divided on whether such a refusal amounts to a deprivation of liberty, and therefore the applications were not clearly frivolous or abusive on their face.

The applicant, a federal inmate, filed an application for habeas corpus under the Criminal Proceedings Rules to challenge his involuntary transfer to a maximum-security institution.

The respondent requested that the application be refiled under the Rules of Civil Procedure, arguing the matter was civil in nature.

The court directed the Registrar to accept the application as a criminal proceeding for administrative purposes, noting that requiring inmates to navigate civil rules and filing fees would impede access to justice.

The applicants, who lease advertising signs, challenged a municipal by-law amendment that eliminated off-premise portable signs.

They argued the amendment infringed their freedom of expression under s. 2(b) of the Charter, was ultra vires, and was tainted by bias.

The court found that while the by-law infringed s. 2(b), it was a reasonable limit saved by s. 1, as it addressed pressing aesthetic and traffic safety concerns.

The court also dismissed the ultra vires and bias claims, finding the municipality acted in good faith and within its statutory authority.

The application was dismissed.

The applicant, an OSPCA officer, sought to quash an information laid by the respondent for a peace bond under s. 810 of the Criminal Code.

The respondent had sought the peace bond after the applicant and other officers executed a warrant, seized animals, and issued compliance orders, alleging the applicant threatened him with financial ruin.

The Superior Court found the Justice of the Peace committed a jurisdictional error by issuing process, as the respondent's fears arose from the lawful consequences of unlawful behaviour, not a reasonable fear of personal injury or property damage.

The application was granted, the information was quashed, and the Ontario Court of Justice was prohibited from adjudicating further proceedings.

The plaintiff physician brought an action against the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons after it determined he did not meet the eligibility requirements to sit the internal medicine national exam based on his US residency training.

Both parties moved for summary judgment.

The court granted the College's motion and dismissed the plaintiff's action, finding no genuine issue for trial as the plaintiff failed to establish any legal duty breached by the College or any damages suffered.

The applicant received a parking ticket and challenged the constitutionality of the City of Toronto's administrative penalty system (By-Law 799-2017).

He argued the system violated sections 7 and 11 of the Charter, conflicted with various statutes, and was enacted in bad faith to maximize revenue.

The Superior Court of Justice dismissed the application, finding that the Charter sections do not apply to administrative penalties with no true penal consequences, the by-law did not conflict with other legislation, and the City enacted the by-law in good faith to efficiently regulate parking.