Stephen J. Moreau

The applicant, a former Senior Vice-President of OLG, sought declarations that OLG breached a retirement contract by failing to pay him additional compensation.

The contract stipulated pre-retirement obligations, including identifying and training a successor and transferring the Compliance department.

The court found that OLG's actions, specifically delaying the approval of a successor and preventing the transfer of the Compliance department, thwarted the applicant's ability to fulfill his contractual duties.

The court determined that the contract did not impose an "all or nothing" condition for payment and that OLG induced the applicant's breach of the terms.

Therefore, the application was granted, and the applicant is to be paid as though he fulfilled all contractual terms.

The applicant, a nurse employed by a hospital, was sued for invasion of privacy after she repeatedly accessed a patient's private hospital records without authorization and without being involved in the patient's care.

The insurance carriers appealed a lower court decision requiring them to defend the nurse under a commercial general liability policy.

The Court of Appeal upheld the lower court's decision, finding that the policy language covering invasion of privacy, including intrusion upon seclusion, clearly applied to the unauthorized access to medical records.

The court held that such conduct arose from the hospital's operations and fell within the scope of coverage intended by the policy.

The applicant, a hospital employee, sought a declaration that the respondent insurers owed her a duty to defend a civil action.

The underlying action alleged the applicant committed the tort of intrusion upon seclusion by repeatedly accessing a patient's medical records without authorization.

The insurers denied coverage, arguing the applicant was not acting under the direction of the hospital and the claim did not arise from the hospital's operations.

The court held that the policy's privacy coverage inherently included unauthorized access to records, and that the collection and maintenance of medical records fell within the hospital's operations.

The application was allowed, and the insurers were ordered to defend the action.

The plaintiffs, former employees of CTS, brought a summary judgment motion in a class proceeding arising from a mass termination following a plant closure.

CTS provided employees with approximately 12 months' working notice but did not file the required Form 1 notice with the Director of Employment Standards until the final 8 weeks.

The court held that the ESA requires Form 1 notice on the first day of the notice period provided by the employer, not just the statutory minimum period.

Because CTS failed to provide timely Form 1 notice, the working notice provided prior to the Form 1 filing was deemed void for all purposes, depriving CTS of credit for that period.

The court also found that requiring employees to work excessive overtime during the notice period negated the working notice for those weeks.

However, the court dismissed the claim for bad faith damages.

The appellant employee appealed the dismissal of his motion for partial summary judgment in a wrongful dismissal action.

He argued the motion judge mistranslated a French termination clause in his employment contract and erred in finding it did not contract out of the Employment Standards Act.

The Court of Appeal acknowledged the translation error but found it immaterial, as the motion judge correctly understood the clause referred to minimum notice and intended to respect the Act.

Applying deference to the motion judge's contractual interpretation, the appeal was dismissed.

The appellant teachers were wrongfully dismissed by the respondent private school.

The motion judge reduced their reasonable notice period from twelve months to six months due to the school's financial difficulties and a presumption about the availability of alternative teaching positions.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, holding that an employer's financial circumstances are not relevant to determining the reasonable notice period under the Bardal factors.

The twelve-month notice period was restored.

The appellants appealed a motion judge's decision refusing to strike the respondent's claim under Rule 21.

The respondent had pleaded the common employer doctrine against a group of corporate defendants and their operator.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, agreeing with the motion judge that the application of the common employer doctrine to operators of a group of common employers is a developing area of law, and it was not plain and obvious the claim would fail.

The court also found the claim was pleaded with sufficient particularity.

The representative plaintiffs in two certified class actions brought a motion to complete the administration of the settlement, discharge the administrator, and approve a cy-près distribution of the remaining $5,373.74 to a charity.

The court granted the discharge but denied the cy-près distribution.

Applying the principle that cy-près should not be used when direct compensation is practicable, the court ordered the remaining funds to be distributed equally among six class members who had submitted late claims due to mail delivery failures.

In this costs endorsement following an employment dispute, the plaintiffs argued they had beaten the defendant's collective settlement offer, while the defendant sought costs consequences under rule 49.10 of the Rules of Civil Procedure.

The court held that the offer should not determine costs, emphasizing that the defendant had lost the fundamental issues at trial and had pursued an uncompromising litigation position inconsistent with the settlement-promoting purpose of the rule.

The court declined to award any costs to the defendant and instead awarded the plaintiffs $42,000, reduced to reflect their limited success on the length of the notice period.

On a summary judgment motion in a wrongful dismissal action, the court held that a series of annual teacher contracts and letters of appointment at a private school did not create fixed-term employment.

Reading the contracts as a whole, and construing ambiguity against the employer, the court found the arrangements contemplated ongoing employment and were contracts of indefinite duration.

The teachers were therefore entitled to common law reasonable notice.

Applying the Bardal factors in light of the school's financial instability, recurring enrolment uncertainty, and the teachers' awareness of that context, the court fixed notice at six months and rejected both mitigation-based reductions and claims for bad faith damages.

The applicant union sought judicial review of an interest arbitration award, arguing the arbitrator denied procedural fairness by failing to disclose a dispute over the cost of a step progression freeze, making a finding without evidence, and refusing to order production of certain financial source documents.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, finding that the arbitrator's procedures and disclosure rulings were reasonable given the flexible and informal nature of interest arbitration.

The court also found there was sufficient evidence in the parties' briefs to support the arbitrator's findings on the cost of the step progression freeze.

The appellant school board appealed an order requiring it to indemnify the respondent employee for legal costs incurred during a workplace investigation into alleged expense fraud.

The employee's contract contained an indemnity clause for costs related to any 'proceeding', excluding cases of dishonesty.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no prima facie evidence of dishonesty was presented, the merits of the allegations were for arbitration, and the formal workplace investigation constituted a 'proceeding' under the broad wording of the contract.

Following reasons on a motion concerning undertakings and production of documents in a wrongful dismissal action, the court determined costs and clarified a prior order.

The court exercised its discretion under Rule 59.06(1) of the Rules of Civil Procedure to amend the earlier order to include travel-related records evidencing the employee’s attendance at certain meetings as the employer’s sole representative.

In assessing costs under s. 131 of the Courts of Justice Act and Rule 57.01, the court found the motion moderately complex and necessary for the employee to advance the claim, particularly given delayed responses to undertakings.

The employee’s bill of costs was largely accepted with partial indemnity adjustments to counsel’s hourly rate.

Costs were awarded for fees, disbursements, and applicable HST, with no additional costs for the written submissions on costs.

The applicant sought advancement and indemnification of legal costs under an employment contract while facing disciplinary proceedings arising from an internal workplace investigation.

The court considered whether the matter could proceed by application under Rule 14.05 of the Rules of Civil Procedure and whether the contractual indemnification clause applied to costs incurred during the investigation stage.

The court held that the presumption of good faith applies and that the respondent had not established a strong prima facie case of dishonesty sufficient to trigger the contractual exclusion.

Interpreting the contract broadly, the court found that the internal investigation and related disciplinary process constituted a “proceeding” within the meaning of the indemnification clause.

The respondent was therefore obligated to advance and reimburse the applicant’s legal costs pending the outcome of arbitration.

The applicant sought to amend his human rights application to add new allegations of discrimination shortly before the scheduled hearing.

The Tribunal denied the request to amend, finding that the applicant had the necessary information to raise the allegations much earlier and that allowing the amendment at this late stage would cause significant prejudice to the respondents.

The Tribunal also issued orders regarding hearing management, including bifurcating the hearing into liability and remedy phases, setting time estimates for witness testimony, and permitting the applicant to transcribe the hearing at his own expense.

The applicant filed a human rights application alleging discrimination and failure to accommodate on the basis of disability against his employer, McMaster University, and several individuals.

The respondents brought a Request for an Order During Proceedings to remove the individual respondents.

Applying the Persaud factors, the Tribunal removed three individuals because the university accepted vicarious liability and their actions were not the central focus.

However, the Tribunal declined to remove the applicant's direct supervisor, as the allegations against him included harassment and were central to the application.

Two related class proceedings alleged that employees transferred from municipal home‑care providers to Community Care Access Centres suffered pension losses when their OMERS or VON pensions were replaced with HOOPP after a government restructuring of home‑care services.

The plaintiffs advanced claims for negligent misrepresentation and breach of contractual undertaking against the province.

Following mediation and negotiations, the parties reached a settlement providing $6.5 million for class members, along with amounts for class counsel fees and administration.

The court reviewed the settlement under s. 29 of the Class Proceedings Act, 1992 and considered the risks of establishing liability and damages, the complexity of actuarial loss calculations, and the absence of objections from class members.

The settlement and proposed class counsel fees were found to fall within a reasonable range and to be in the best interests of the class.

The applicant employer sought judicial review of an arbitration board's decision imposing a first collective agreement under the Loi sur l'arbitrage des conflits de travail dans les hôpitaux.

The employer argued the board exceeded its jurisdiction by implicitly treating it and a related hospital as a single employer, and that the wage and benefit increases were unreasonable.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, finding the board merely used the hospital as a comparator for wages and benefits, which was within its jurisdiction.

The court also held that the board's decision on wages and benefits was reasonable and entitled to deference.

The applicants sought judicial review of a Small Claims Court decision that stayed their action for unpaid health and welfare benefits to allow the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) to determine if it had jurisdiction.

The dispute arose following a union raid.

The Divisional Court confirmed it had jurisdiction to review interlocutory orders of the Small Claims Court but dismissed the application, agreeing that the OLRB, which has exclusive jurisdiction over labour relations issues, should first determine its jurisdiction over the matter.

The applicants sought an interlocutory injunction reinstating two students expelled from a private school for possessing and consuming marijuana on campus.

The expulsions were imposed pursuant to the school’s zero‑tolerance drug policy contained in contractual enrollment documents.

The applicants argued that the court had jurisdiction under the Judicial Review Procedure Act or, alternatively, through contract law, and that procedural fairness required notice and a hearing before expulsion.

The court held that the decision of a private school to expel students was not the exercise of a statutory power of decision and therefore was not subject to judicial review under the JRPA.

Applying the RJR‑MacDonald test, the court found no serious issue to be tried because the contractual documents clearly incorporated the zero‑tolerance policy and the misconduct was admitted.

The motion for interlocutory reinstatement was dismissed.