Stephen Geoffrey Aylward

The Law Society of Ontario appealed a Divisional Court decision that remitted a costs decision back to the Law Society Tribunal Hearing Division.

The respondent, a lawyer, had successfully defended against professional misconduct charges and sought costs against the Law Society under Rule 25.01 for 'wasted costs'.

The Hearing Division denied costs, but the Divisional Court found the investigation was procedurally unfair and one-sided.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the Law Society's appeal, holding that while the Divisional Court erred in applying a procedural fairness framework, the Hearing Division erred in principle by taking a piecemeal approach to the Law Society's conduct and applying an overly rigid standard for wasted costs.

The matter was properly remitted for a holistic assessment of whether the Law Society's conduct caused wasted costs.

The applicant, an American web-based videoconference provider, sought judicial review of Ontario Health's refusal to verify its platform as a 'Verified Virtual Visit Solution', which prevented Ontario physicians from billing OHIP for services rendered using the platform.

Ontario Health required the applicant to store data in Canada, asserting the platform collected personal health information.

The Divisional Court held that the data residency requirement and the related OHIP payment rule were not ultra vires.

While the court found Ontario Health's conclusion that the applicant collected personal health information to be unreasonable, it ultimately dismissed the application because the applicant failed to meet other mandatory technical and privacy assessment requirements.

A licensed paralegal sought leave to intervene as a friend of the court in an appeal challenging the Law Society of Ontario's restrictions on the permitted scope of practice for paralegals in immigration matters.

The motion judge found the proposed intervener failed to identify how her intervention would assist the court beyond the contributions of the existing parties and three previously granted interveners.

The proposed intervener's own action against the LSO raising substantially similar issues had been stayed pending the outcome of this appeal.

The motion was also brought well past the deadline for intervention motions.

Leave to intervene was denied with no order as to costs.

The appellant appealed a motion judge's order dismissing his motion to add three non-LSO defendants as necessary parties to his action and to amend his pleadings to include a negligence claim against them.

The Court of Appeal upheld the motion judge's decision on three grounds: (1) the issue of whether the non-LSO defendants were necessary parties had been finally determined in prior proceedings and raising it again constituted an abuse of process; (2) the negligence claim was statute-barred under the Limitations Act, 2002, as the appellant had discovered the relevant facts by December 2020, well before the proposed amendment in June 2023; and (3) the negligence claim constituted an abuse of process as it could have been made in the original statement of claim.

The appeal was dismissed with costs awarded to the respondents.

This criminal sentence appeal under the Youth Criminal Justice Act addressed the proper interpretation of s. 72(1) governing when a young person may receive an adult sentence.

The Court held that under s. 72(1)(a), the Crown must rebut the statutory presumption of diminished moral blameworthiness beyond a reasonable doubt, and that objective offence seriousness is not a proper factor at that first-stage developmental-age inquiry.

Applying that standard, the majority found legal errors in the sentencing analysis and concluded the Crown had not displaced the presumption on this record.

The appeal was allowed, the adult life sentence was set aside, and a youth sentence was imposed with remittal on pre-sentence custody credit and supervision conditions.

This endorsement addresses motions for leave to intervene in an appeal by Antonio Caruso challenging the Law Society of Ontario’s restrictions on paralegals’ scope of practice in immigration matters.

The Court grants leave to intervene to the Ontario Paralegal Association, the Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association, and the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants, but denies leave to the Canadian Paralegal Alliance.

The decision reviews the relevant principles for intervention, the backgrounds and proposed contributions of each intervener, and the reasons for granting or denying leave.

The appellant, a non-profit organization, sought public interest standing to bring nine applications for judicial review challenging decisions made by the Ontario Integrity Commissioner under the Lobbyists Registration Act.

The Divisional Court quashed the applications, finding the appellant lacked standing.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal upheld the decision, agreeing that the applications did not raise a serious justiciable issue as they merely challenged individual exercises of discretion rather than statutory interpretation.

The Court also agreed that the applications were not a reasonable and effective means to bring the issues before the courts, as they would conflict with the statutory scheme and its strict confidentiality provisions.

The plaintiff, Alexander Shaulov, brought a motion to amend his statement of claim to re-add Performance Assessment Group Inc., John Braham, and Michael Williams (the non-LSO defendants) and to plead a new cause of action in negligence against them.

The claims against the non-LSO defendants had been previously struck without leave to amend, and subsequent attempts to keep them as parties or appeal those decisions were unsuccessful.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that re-litigating the issue of adding the non-LSO defendants was an abuse of process, and that the proposed negligence claim was statute-barred as the material facts were known to the plaintiff prior to the initial claim.

The self-represented applicant sought judicial review regarding the Law Society of Ontario's failure to accommodate him during the barrister examination.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application as premature, noting that the applicant had not exhausted his opportunities to re-write the examination.

The court emphasized that judicial interference in administrative proceedings should be avoided until the process has run its course, especially since the Law Society had subsequently put the requested accommodations in place for a re-write.

The moving party brought a motion for an extension of time to seek leave to appeal a prior decision, and for leave to appeal.

The Divisional Court granted the extension of time but denied the motion for leave to appeal.

Costs were awarded to the responding parties in the fixed amount of $5,000 all-inclusive.

The appellant, Alexander Shaulov, appealed a decision from a case management judge that effectively removed "Non-LSO parties" from his lawsuit against the Law Society of Ontario.

Shaulov had sued the LSO and other parties after repeatedly failing the barrister exam.

The case management judge had previously struck claims against the Non-LSO parties and stated that to re-plead against them, Shaulov would need consent or leave of the court under Rule 26.02 of the Rules of Civil Procedure.

The Court of Appeal quashed the appeal, finding it lacked jurisdiction because the case management judge's decision was interlocutory, not a final order, and therefore an appeal would require leave to the Superior Court.

The applicant, a licensed paralegal, brought an application for judicial review seeking a declaration that he is authorized to process and file immigration applications under the federal Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA).

The Law Society of Ontario (LSO) maintained that By-Law 4 restricts paralegals to providing legal services only in connection with proceedings before the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB).

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, finding that the LSO's interpretation of By-Law 4 was correct, that the by-law does not conflict with the IRPA under the federal paramountcy doctrine, and that the restriction does not violate section 7 of the Charter.

The Law Society of Ontario (LSO) brought a motion to strike the plaintiff's administrative law claims, which challenged the LSO's licensing examination structure and procedural fairness.

The court dismissed the LSO's motion, finding that the claims disclosed a reasonable cause of action and were better suited for summary judgment or trial.

The court also addressed the plaintiff's attempt to re-add previously struck non-LSO defendants, confirming that these defendants were no longer parties to the action as all claims against them had been struck without leave to amend and they were not necessary parties.

This is an appeal from a Superior Court order staying proceedings due to the appellants' unauthorized possession and review of the respondents' privileged documents.

The parties were involved in a failed joint venture to establish a Schedule 1 bank.

The appellants, particularly Scott Penfound, obtained and accessed voluminous privileged emails and legal strategy documents belonging to the respondents from a shared file server.

The motion judge found a rebuttable presumption of prejudice, which the appellants failed to rebut by not providing evidence of the scope of their review.

The Court of Appeal upheld the stay, finding no error in the motion judge's conclusion that significant, ongoing prejudice existed that could not be cured by a lesser remedy, especially given the client's direct access to the information and lack of transparency.

Following a successful motion to strike the plaintiff's statement of claim as an abuse of process, the defendant sought substantial indemnity costs.

The court noted the defendant's initial failure to file a costs outline but accepted the late submission under Rule 57.01(5).

Given the finding of abuse of process and the plaintiff's failure to heed prior judicial warnings about the claim being a collateral attack on a criminal conviction, the court awarded the defendant substantial indemnity costs fixed at $12,000.

The Crown appealed from a Court of Appeal decision striking down Criminal Code provisions (ss. 742.1(c) and 742.1(e)(ii)) that made conditional sentences unavailable for certain serious offences, as applied to an Indigenous offender convicted of importing cocaine.

The majority (5-4) allowed the appeal, restoring the 18-month custodial sentence, holding that the respondent failed to satisfy step one of the s. 15(1) Charter analysis by not demonstrating that the impugned provisions created or contributed to a disproportionate impact on Indigenous offenders relative to non-Indigenous offenders.

The majority also held the provisions were not overbroad under s. 7 because maximum sentences are a reasonable proxy for offence seriousness.

The dissent would have dismissed the appeal, finding the provisions both overbroad under s. 7 and discriminatory against Indigenous offenders under s. 15(1) by impairing the remedial Gladue framework.

The appellants (plaintiffs in the underlying action) appealed a motion judge's decision to permanently stay their proceedings against the respondent (David Smith) due to their failure to immediately disclose partial settlement agreements with other co-defendants.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario affirmed that failure to immediately disclose settlement agreements that fundamentally alter the litigation landscape, by changing adversarial relationships into cooperative ones, constitutes an abuse of process.

The court reiterated that the sole remedy for such non-disclosure is an automatic stay of proceedings, regardless of whether prejudice is proven or if pleadings have been exchanged.

The appeal was dismissed, upholding the permanent stay.

The applicant brought a motion to set aside an order quashing nine judicial review applications on the basis that it lacked public interest standing.

The Divisional Court panel found no error of law or palpable and overriding error in the motion judge's application of the test for public interest standing.

The motion judge correctly concluded that the applications did not raise a serious justiciable issue transcending specific individual interests and that judicial review was not a reasonable and effective way to bring the issue before the courts.

The motion was dismissed with no order as to costs.

The applicant sought judicial review of the Chief Electoral Officer's decision to refuse to reserve the name 'Direct Democracy Party of Canada' for the upcoming provincial election.

The respondent had rejected the name on the basis that it was likely to cause confusion with another registered party, but failed to provide written reasons.

The Divisional Court allowed the application, holding that the Election Finances Act requires written reasons when a party name is deemed unregistrable.

The impugned decisions were quashed and remitted back to the respondent for a decision with reasons.

The appellants appealed a decision of the Assessment Review Board which determined that the current value assessment of a landfill site should exclude the value of a facility used to generate electricity from landfill gas.

The appellants argued the facility was a commercial activity, not used exclusively for landfilling activities.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding that the generation of electricity from landfill gas is an environmental control activity required by the site's environmental compliance approval, and thus falls within the definition of landfilling activities under O. Reg. 282/98.