Superior Court of Justice

The respondent requested a correction to a costs endorsement, noting the judge had mistakenly written the fee total instead of the all-inclusive total of fees, taxes, and disbursements.

The applicants objected, arguing the endorsement was clear and the issue should be raised on cross-appeal since an appeal had already been commenced.

The court corrected the transposition error, amending the costs award to the intended all-inclusive amount of $2,288,314.57, noting the Court of Appeal would prefer the corrected outcome over a cross-appeal about a typo.

The plaintiff commenced an action against the automobile defendants for damages under the Family Law Act arising from a motor vehicle accident that injured his mother.

He also sued his mother's former lawyers in the alternative for failing to advance his claim in the original tort action.

The automobile defendants crossclaimed against the lawyer defendants for contribution and indemnity.

The plaintiff moved to discontinue his claim against the lawyer defendants, which was granted.

The lawyer defendants moved to strike the crossclaim.

The court struck the crossclaim without leave to amend, finding that the lawyer defendants and automobile defendants were not concurrent tortfeasors who caused the same damage, and therefore no right of contribution and indemnity existed under the Negligence Act.

The offender pleaded guilty to multiple serious offences, including discharging a firearm at a police officer during a gas station shootout and engaging in a 10-hour armed standoff at his boobytrapped home.

The police seized a massive arsenal of firearms, ammunition, and explosives from the residence.

The court weighed the extreme gravity of the offences, the offender's prior firearms record, and the breach of prohibition orders against mitigating factors including guilty pleas and harsh pre-sentence custody conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The offender was sentenced to a total of 18 years in custody, less credit for pre-sentence custody.

The plaintiffs brought a motion to compel production of documents, answers to refused questions, and re-attendance for further examinations of several defendants and a non-party witness following cross-examinations on an affidavit and examinations under Rule 39.03.

The examinations were conducted in the context of a pending motion by the defendant Purchaser Corporations to discharge certificates of pending litigation.

The court granted partial relief, ordering the production of share purchase agreements and answers to specific questions regarding corporate control and share transfers, finding them relevant to the bona fides of the property transactions.

The court dismissed the requests for voluminous due diligence documents as overbroad and declined to order re-attendance for further examinations.

The mother brought a motion to strike the father's pleadings and for a vesting order regarding the jointly held matrimonial home due to the father's egregious and persistent non-compliance with court orders.

The father, who resides in Iran, failed to pay over $700,000 in retroactive and ongoing child and spousal support, mortgage expenses, and costs, and failed to provide financial disclosure.

The court applied the three-pronged test from Lamothe v. Ellis and struck the father's pleadings, allowing the mother to proceed by way of an uncontested trial.

The court also granted a vesting order transferring the father's 50% interest in the matrimonial home to the mother to secure the outstanding support and equalization obligations.

The applicant brought a motion for summary judgment seeking a declaration that the parties had been separated for over one year to proceed with a simple divorce application.

The respondent opposed, arguing the motion was premature and that an Ontario divorce would prejudice her claims in India.

The court found the parties had been separated for over one year, noted the respondent had withdrawn her annulment claim, and held there was no evidence of actual prejudice to justify withholding the divorce.

The applicant mother sought interim child and spousal support, while the respondent father sought interim primary residence and sole decision-making for their four children.

The mother has a severe, ongoing drug addiction that resulted in multiple overdoses and CAS involvement.

The court granted the father primary residence and sole decision-making, finding it in the children's best interests despite the older children's preferences.

The mother's claim for child support was dismissed.

The court imputed the father's income at $103,000 and ordered him to pay interim spousal support of $550 per month while the mother remained in a family-owned property, increasing to $1,000 per month once she vacated.

The plaintiff, Ontario, obtained a worldwide Mareva injunction against the defendants in relation to an alleged kickback scheme and fraud.

The moving defendants sought to vary the injunction to permit the sale of two properties to fund their civil and criminal legal expenses, as well as living and therapy expenses.

The court determined that the injunction was non-proprietary, as Ontario failed to establish a direct link between the misappropriated funds and the specific properties to support a constructive trust.

The court granted the motion, allowing the properties to be sold and the proceeds used for reasonable legal and living expenses, subject to accounting requirements.

Following a trial and an appeal that remitted the matter back for an assessment of damages on the counterclaim, the court assessed damages for the unlawful seizure of the defendants' business assets.

The court valued the seized heavy equipment at $415,000 and assessed business losses at $210,000.

After applying a set-off for the damages awarded to the plaintiffs in the main action, the plaintiffs were ordered to pay the defendants $273,251.87.

The plaintiff brought a motion for civil contempt against the defendant for failing to comply with a previous court order that required the defendant to remove defamatory social media posts, refrain from further defamation, and publish a retraction.

The court found beyond a reasonable doubt that the order was clear and unequivocal, the defendant had actual knowledge of it, and the defendant intentionally breached all three directives.

The court found the defendant in contempt and scheduled a second-stage hearing for sentencing, giving the defendant an opportunity to purge her contempt in the interim.

The mother brought an application for parenting orders, increased child support, and section 7 expenses following the father's failure to provide financial disclosure or engage in the proceedings.

The matter proceeded as an uncontested trial.

The court granted the mother sole decision-making responsibility and primary residence.

Due to the father's failure to disclose his income, the court imputed his income based on the Bank of Canada's inflation calculator applied to his 2019 income.

The court ordered retroactive and ongoing child support based on the imputed income, apportioned section 7 expenses proportionally, and awarded costs to the mother.

The Crown applied to admit hearsay statements from the deceased victim and the post-mortem report of an unavailable pathologist in a manslaughter trial.

The court admitted the victim's statements, finding they met the criteria for spontaneous utterances and the principled exception to the hearsay rule, with sufficient markers of threshold reliability.

However, the court excluded the pathologist's report, concluding that the inability to cross-examine the expert on his baldly stated opinion regarding the cause of death would cause significant prejudice to the accused, outweighing its probative value.

The applicant brought a motion for retroactive and ongoing spousal support, and for interim disbursements to question the respondent.

The respondent sought to dismiss the motion, release $100,000 from the sale proceeds of his property, and obtain costs personally against the applicant's lawyer for a previously aborted motion.

The court ordered ongoing spousal support of $1,300 monthly but deferred the retroactive claim due to incomplete financial disclosure.

The court also awarded the applicant $5,000 for interim disbursements, released $50,000 to the respondent, and declined to order costs against the applicant's lawyer.

The plaintiff brought an ex parte motion in writing for leave to issue a writ of possession for a mortgaged property.

The court noted that the plaintiff's occupancy check report indicated the property had recently been sold with an impending closing date.

The court declined to grant the order, finding that further evidence was required to confirm the identity of the persons currently in actual possession of the property to ensure they received sufficient notice under Rule 60.10(2).

The parties, former common-law spouses, brought competing motions for summary judgment regarding the ownership of their former home.

The applicant had previously transferred his 50 percent joint interest in the property to the respondent gratuitously to protect it from creditors.

The court found that the gratuitous transfer created a presumption of resulting trust, which the respondent failed to rebut, as an intention to defeat creditors is not conclusive evidence of a gift.

The applicant's motion for a declaration of a resulting trust was granted, and the respondent's motion to dismiss or compel undertakings was dismissed.

However, the applicant was ordered to pay the respondent's substantial indemnity costs of $5,000 due to his conduct in the litigation.

The Crown brought an application to admit evidence of the accused's prior discreditable conduct—specifically, an incident of physical abuse against another child—to cross-examine the complainant's mother if she testified for the defence.

The Crown argued the evidence was relevant to the mother's credibility, not for propensity reasoning.

The court found the evidence constituted other discreditable conduct and applied the balancing test from R. v. L.B. The application was dismissed, as the potential prejudicial effect of distracting the jury with a collateral issue outweighed the weak probative value of the evidence.

The Receiver brought a motion for a contempt order against the respondent for failing to comply with a Receivership Order.

The court previously found the respondent in contempt.

At the sentencing hearing, the court considered the respondent's subsequent efforts to purge his contempt, including attending examinations and providing documents, as well as his apology.

Applying the Cavalon factors, the court declined to impose a custodial sentence but ordered the respondent to pay a $15,000 fine, declaring it a penalty under s. 178 of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act.

The plaintiffs and defendants, former friends, invested in real estate together.

The plaintiffs claimed a 50% beneficial interest in a property registered solely in the defendants' names, based on an oral agreement and a $69,000 contribution.

The court found the oral agreement enforceable due to part performance, overcoming the Statute of Frauds, and ordered the property sold and proceeds divided.

The court also dismissed the plaintiffs' libel claim regarding false accusations of criminal conduct, finding the publication was de minimis and caused no actual harm.

The action was held to be within the 10-year limitation period under the Real Property Limitations Act.

The applicant sought to quash the Regional Municipality of Niagara's Woodland Conservation Bylaw, arguing it was ultra vires, conflicted with a historic Crown Patent and provincial statutes, and was impermissibly vague.

The applicant contended that the Crown's previous relinquishment of tree reservations meant the municipality could not regulate tree destruction on the property.

The Superior Court of Justice dismissed the application, finding the bylaw was a valid exercise of the municipality's regulatory powers under section 135 of the Municipal Act.

The court held that the Crown Patent did not supersede provincial or municipal authority to regulate land use, and the bylaw's definitions were sufficiently clear.

The plaintiffs brought a motion for summary judgment seeking specific performance of an agreement of purchase and sale for a vacant residential lot.

The defendant vendors had refused to close the transaction, claiming they were unable to remove outstanding writs of execution from title and treating the agreement as terminated.

The court found that the defendants failed to act in good faith to clear the title, as they could have paid the executions from the sale proceeds or paid the funds into court.

The court also found the property was unique to the plaintiffs given its location and affordability.

The plaintiffs' motion for specific performance was granted and the defendants' cross-motion was dismissed.