Superior Court of Justice

The decision addresses an application by Deren Akyeam-Pong to exclude evidence seized during a search of a Toronto hotel room, arguing that the search warrants were issued without sufficient grounds and that his rights under sections 8 and 9 of the Charter were breached.

The court reviews the adequacy of the Information to Obtain (ITO), the role of confidential informant privilege, and the sufficiency of judicial summaries of redacted material.

The court finds that the ITO, as supplemented by a judicial summary, provided sufficient credible and reliable evidence to support the issuance of the warrants.

The application is dismissed.

The court granted Alexander Shifrin a declaration that he is a 15% shareholder in LDF Frozen Foods Inc., along with related relief, including rectification of the share register, production of corporate documents, and a direction for a trial on damages.

The decision turned on the credibility of the parties and the existence of an enforceable agreement for Shifrin’s investment and shareholding.

The court found that Shifrin had not been repaid his investment and was entitled to the shares, and that his claim was not statute-barred.

The court considered a motion by Royal Protective Services Inc. to compel Daniella and Shawn Leis to attend examinations for discovery before other parties in a complex, multi-party action arising from a motor vehicle accident.

The court found that Daniella and her father were the only parties with direct knowledge of the essential facts and ordered that they be examined first, rejecting the Leis defendants' reliance on the technical order of examinations under Rule 31.04(3).

Costs were awarded to the moving party on a partial indemnity basis.

The plaintiff, St. Joseph’s Hospital, commenced an action against the City of Thunder Bay for property damages allegedly caused by the addition of sodium hydroxide to the municipal water supply.

After a parallel class action was certified, the plaintiff decided to join the class proceeding, and the parties agreed to stay the individual action.

The City moved for costs thrown away regarding a document review and cancelled discoveries, while the plaintiff cross-moved for the costs of a prior case conference.

The court dismissed both claims, finding that the City failed to provide a Bill of Costs to support its claims and that the plaintiff's request was barred because the prior case conference endorsement was silent on costs.

The plaintiffs, Muhammad and Naseem Farid, sued their former solicitor, Gerald Byron Brunt, for negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of good faith, and breach of statutory duty after a failed real estate transaction.

The court found that the plaintiffs did not have the funds to close the transaction and that the defendant was not responsible for the failure.

The court rejected the plaintiffs' evidence as inconsistent and unsupported by documentary evidence, and found the expert evidence provided by the plaintiffs to be partial and unreliable.

The action was dismissed, and even if liability had been found, damages would have been limited to $1,400.

The decision addresses an urgent motion brought by the respondent, Maria Mahmud, seeking to enforce recommendations from a case conference and a domestic contract regarding parenting time with the child, Minha Abid.

The court found the matter was not urgent, emphasizing the importance of case conferences, settlement discussions, and the confidentiality of those proceedings.

The court also discussed the doctrines of res judicata and abuse of process, finding neither applied to bar the motion.

The motion was dismissed as not urgent, and no costs were awarded.

This costs endorsement follows the granting of anti-SLAPP motions by the three defendants.

The court addresses the scale and quantum of costs, the issue of duplication between legal teams, and the entitlement of a self-represented litigant to costs.

The court awards full indemnity costs to the defendants, finding the requests fair and reasonable, and declines to award compensation to the self-represented defendant for his own time.

The decision addresses a motion by iHealthOx Inc. and Terri Storey to set aside a default judgment obtained by Welch LLP for unpaid professional fees.

The court found that the defendants were validly served and that iHealthOx Inc. did not have an arguable defence on the merits, but that Ms. Storey had an arguable defence regarding her personal liability.

The default judgment was set aside as against Ms. Storey, conditional on payment of costs, but not as against iHealthOx Inc.

This decision concerns the sanction for contempt and the allocation of costs following findings that the defendants failed to comply with a court order (the "Turnover Order") in a complex commercial dispute.

The court awards full indemnity costs to the plaintiffs for the contempt motion, reduced by 25% due to Charter breaches, and substantial indemnity costs to the defendants for a successful Charter-based stay motion.

The court also addresses the principles of set-off and mutuality of debt in the context of competing costs awards.

This supplementary judgment addresses the penalty for the husband's contempt of court, including the violation of a mareva injunction and preservation order, the issue of a stay pending appeal, costs, mathematical corrections, and further procedural matters.

The court imposes a 90-day custodial sentence, finds the husband acted in bad faith, and awards costs to the wife.

The judgment also addresses the husband's request for a stay, the process for varying the sentence if the husband purges his contempt, and the next steps in related proceedings.

The court dismissed the plaintiff's action against two defendants as an abuse of process, finding it to be a collateral attack on a prior Small Claims Court proceeding regarding the enforceability of a settlement agreement.

The court held that the plaintiff's claim was a pre-emptive collateral attack and that allowing it to proceed would force the defendants to fight a "two-front war." The court also addressed the status of the claim against a third defendant, Dixon, and clarified the application of Rule 2.1 of the Rules of Civil Procedure.

The decision concerns a family law dispute regarding parenting time, decision-making, and child support for two children following the parents' separation.

The applicant father sought final orders for parenting time, child support, and related matters.

The respondent mother's pleadings were struck for repeated non-compliance with court orders, and the trial proceeded uncontested.

The court ordered regular parenting time for the father, maintained the mother as primary residence parent, and set child support and cost-sharing arrangements, declining to use enforcement mechanisms such as police enforcement or automatic residence change.

The non-party moving party, Westbrook Greenhouse Systems Ltd., sought to set aside a portion of a 2022 third-party production order obtained by the plaintiff, Enertec Engineering.

Westbrook's president had failed to respond to the original motion because he misread the scope of the requested production, mistakenly believing it only applied to municipal filings.

The court found that this inattentive but honest mistake fell within the scope of Rule 37.14(1)(b) of the Rules of Civil Procedure.

Consequently, the court granted the motion to set aside the production paragraph to allow the issue to be re-litigated, but declined to award costs to Westbrook due to its president's initial carelessness.

The accused, C.N., was charged with sexual assault and sexual interference involving a seven-year-old complainant, V.V. The trial turned on the credibility of the child witnesses and the accused.

The court reviewed the evidence, including video surveillance, police interviews, and testimony, and applied the legal framework for assessing credibility and adverse inferences.

The judge found the accused's evidence not credible, accepted the core of the complainants' evidence, and convicted C.N. on both counts.

The applicants, succeeding estate trustees of the Estate of Cyril Hirsh Rosenthal, brought a motion seeking a declaration of contempt against the former estate trustee, Syed Pervez, for alleged non-compliance with a consent document production order.

The dispute primarily concerned documents in Pervez's possession in his capacity as an external accountant for a third-party corporation, Paragon Protection Ltd., in which the estate held an indirect interest.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that the applicants failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Pervez was in contempt.

The court held that the consent order was unclear and overly broad as to whether it covered documents held in Pervez's professional accounting capacity, and further noted that Pervez had made good faith efforts to comply.

On a family law motion arising from a simple divorce application, the moving party sought leave to file an Answer late, along with related procedural and preservation relief.

The court refused to reopen the divorce application, holding that the deadline to file an Answer is not merely a guideline and that the circumstances were materially distinguishable from authorities favouring extensions of time.

The court emphasized the limited nature of the original application, the passage of more than two years since commencement, the absence of meaningful concessions, and the availability of other avenues to pursue property claims.

The certificate of pending litigation and preservation relief were maintained, and the prior service order was varied to remove the requirement of service by mail on the added party in Tehran.

The court sentenced Mwanza Serge Mutombo for aggravated assault after a guilty plea.

The facts involved a vicious, unprovoked attack on a vulnerable, homeless victim, resulting in severe injuries.

The court considered aggravating factors such as Mutombo’s significant criminal record, the use of a weapon, and the vulnerability of the victim, as well as mitigating factors including his guilty plea, disadvantaged background, and harsh pre-sentence custody conditions.

The court reviewed relevant case law and sentencing ranges, ultimately imposing a nine-year sentence, less pretrial custody credit, and making ancillary orders including a lifetime weapons prohibition and DNA order.

The applicants sought enforcement in Ontario of an English court order appointing them as deputies for Marija Jurate Danilunas, or alternatively, appointment as guardians under the Substitute Decisions Act, 1992.

The court reviewed the evidentiary and legal requirements for recognition of foreign capacity orders, noting the lack of medical evidence and the absence of a statutory regime for automatic recognition of such orders from England.

The court raised several questions regarding the appropriate legal test for recognition of foreign in rem capacity orders, the role of public policy, and the need for further submissions from the parties and potentially interested intervenors.

No final order was made, and the matter was set for further case management.

The applicant, charged with violent offences arising from an alleged stabbing, sought disclosure of complainant conviction-related and non-conviction police records to support a self-defence theory.

The court applied the first-party disclosure framework and held that records of prior violent incidents involving the complainants, including withdrawn or stayed charges, acquittals, uncharged occurrences, related domestic incidents, and any existing videos of prior altercations, were obviously relevant to credibility and self-defence.

The court emphasized that relevance is assessed at the disclosure stage, not by reference to ultimate admissibility, and that a sufficiently close connection existed between the requested materials and the live issues at trial.

The disclosure application under the first-party regime was granted.

The court considered competing motions regarding possession of a commercial property and the discharge of a certificate of pending litigation (CPL) in the context of a mortgage default.

The Plaintiff, a holding company, sought to set aside an ex parte order granting the CPL and to be declared in possession of the property.

The Defendant argued an oral agreement allowed indefinite interest-only payments and challenged the Plaintiff’s right to possession.

The court found the Defendant failed to make full and frank disclosure on the ex parte motion, that the Plaintiff was entitled to possession under the mortgage and the Mortgages Act, and that the CPL should be vacated.

The Plaintiff’s motion was granted and the Defendant’s dismissed.