W. Danial Newton

The plaintiff brought a motion to set aside a Registrar's order dismissing her personal injury action for delay.

The action arose from a 2016 fall at a bus stop.

Despite a prior order extending the time to set the action down for trial, plaintiff's counsel inadvertently failed to diarize the new deadline, leading to the administrative dismissal.

The court applied the contextual test for setting aside a dismissal order, finding that the delay was adequately explained, counsel's inadvertence caused the missed deadline, and the defendant suffered no significant prejudice.

The motion was granted and the dismissal order was set aside, with no costs awarded to the plaintiff.

The plaintiff moved for leave to examine a non-party, his former spouse, for discovery, and for an order compelling the defendants to answer questions refused at their discoveries.

The court dismissed the motion for leave to examine the non-party, finding that the defendants had provided a 'will say' statement that satisfied the requirement to avoid trial by surprise.

The court also dismissed the motion to compel answers to refusals, finding that the requested will was not relevant and the request for names of persons the defendants had spoken to about the litigation was overly broad.

The accused pleaded guilty to manslaughter after stabbing the victim during a street confrontation.

The victim had previously broken into the accused's home and stolen electronics.

Both men were armed with knives and under the influence of fentanyl during the altercation.

The Crown sought a 9-year sentence, while the defence sought 2 years less a day.

The court determined the fit sentence to be 7 years.

After applying a Summers credit of 5.1 years for pre-sentence custody and a Duncan credit of 0.9 years for harsh pre-trial custody conditions including lockdowns and triple bunking, the net sentence imposed was 365 days in custody followed by 3 years of probation.

The applicant mother sought to relocate with the parties' 12-year-old son from Thunder Bay to Sudbury.

The parties had shared equal parenting time since separation.

The mother argued the move would provide better access to professionals for the child's ADHD, a new peer group to escape bullying, and closer proximity to her new partner's children.

The father opposed the move, emphasizing the child's need for stability, his established medical team, and his strong relationships with extended family in Thunder Bay.

The court applied the best interests of the child test under the Divorce Act, including the specific relocation factors.

The court found that the mother failed to meet her burden of proving the relocation was in the child's best interests, noting the significant negative impact on the child's relationships and the child's expressed preference to remain in Thunder Bay.

The application to relocate was dismissed.

The Crown brought applications for the forfeiture of hundreds of forged paintings attributed to Norval Morrisseau.

The Estate of Norval Morrisseau brought a motion seeking standing as a party or leave to intervene, as well as leave to file expert evidence regarding the adverse effects of preserving the forgeries.

The court found that the Estate had a valid interest in the property and granted it leave to intervene.

The Estate's participation was limited to leading expert evidence on the harms caused by the forgeries and making submissions grounded in the evidentiary record.

The Crown brought applications for the return and forfeiture of hundreds of paintings and objects of art seized during the Voss, Lamont, Cowan, White, and Bremner investigations into forged art.

At a case conference, the court set out the evidentiary basis for the applications and directed that the parties must sign an undertaking restricting the use and dissemination of the disclosure material before the Crown provides it.

The court scheduled a further case conference to review the status of disclosure and set a schedule for the delivery of application records and responding materials.

The plaintiffs brought a motion for leave to issue a Certificate of Pending Litigation (CPL) against two properties owned by the defendant, alleging that funds they loaned to the defendants were used to purchase or renovate the properties.

The defendants opposed the CPL and sought an order striking a notice registered by the plaintiffs under the Land Titles Act.

The court dismissed the plaintiffs' motion, finding no evidence that their funds were used to acquire or improve the properties, and concluded the CPL request was an attempt to secure execution before judgment.

The court granted the defendants' motion to permanently remove the improperly registered Land Titles Act notice.

The applicant brought an application against the respondent, his niece and attorney for property for his mother, alleging breach of duty and conversion.

The applicant abandoned the application shortly before the hearing.

The respondent sought her costs.

The court found the allegations were unfounded and the respondent was entitled to full indemnity costs.

The court ordered the respondent's costs of $29,191.82 to be paid $5,000 by the estate and the balance by the applicant.

Following an uncontested trial where the applicant was granted a final order, the applicant sought full recovery costs of $33,693.25 on the basis of the respondent's bad faith.

The applicant argued that the respondent's failure to cooperate and emails stating he would not respond constituted bad faith.

The court held that while the respondent's failure to cooperate increased the applicant's costs, it did not meet the high threshold of intentional duplicity, obstruction, or obfuscation required for a finding of bad faith.

The court fixed costs payable by the respondent at $15,000 plus HST and disbursements.

The appellant, a teacher, was found to have committed professional misconduct and sexual abuse by sending inappropriate Facebook messages to a former student.

Under the Ontario College of Teachers Act, 1996, this finding resulted in the mandatory revocation of his teaching certificate.

The appellant appealed, arguing that the mandatory revocation provisions unjustifiably infringed his freedom of expression under s. 2(b) of the Charter, and that the Discipline Panel erred in its evidentiary rulings and by failing to conduct a Doré analysis.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, upholding the Panel's finding that the infringement of the appellant's freedom of expression was justified under s. 1 of the Charter to protect vulnerable students from sexual abuse.

Two naturopaths appealed the Discipline Committee's findings of professional misconduct, penalty, and costs orders against them.

The allegations included offering treatment outside the scope of practice, advertising cancer treatments, and failing to cooperate with investigators.

The appellants raised numerous procedural and Charter arguments, including unreasonable search and seizure, delay, vague allegations, and reasonable apprehension of bias due to similarities in the two separate panel decisions.

The Divisional Court dismissed both appeals, finding no palpable and overriding errors or errors of law, and held that the similarities in the decisions did not rebut the presumption of judicial integrity given the extensive overlap in the cases.

The Crown applied to hold joint forfeiture hearings in multiple related prosecutions involving over 1,000 allegedly forged artworks seized from third parties.

The third parties and proposed intervenors either took no position or did not oppose the application.

The court granted the application, finding that a joint hearing involving common third parties, evidence, and legal issues would be the most efficient process and ensure a consistent application of the law.

The applicant mother brought a motion to find the respondent father in contempt of a final parenting time order after the children did not attend scheduled parenting time, including over the Christmas holidays.

The father argued that the children, aged 16 and 13, refused to attend and that he supported their decision.

The court reviewed the law on civil contempt and a parent's positive obligation to facilitate parenting time.

The motion was dismissed, as a letter from the children's reunification therapist raised a reasonable doubt as to whether the father had intentionally breached the order.

The appellant, an environmental advocacy group, appealed decisions of the Ontario Energy Board granting leave to construct four natural gas projects.

The appellant argued that the Board erred in law and breached procedural fairness by denying its requests to file proposed survey and expert evidence and to convene a technical conference.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding that the Board applied the correct legal test by balancing the probative value of the evidence against regulatory efficiency.

Applying the Baker factors, the Court held that the appellant, as an intervenor, was owed a duty of fairness at the lower end of the spectrum, and the Board's procedural choices did not amount to a denial of natural justice.

The applicant sought judicial review of a Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) decision dismissing her discrimination application as an abuse of process for failing to produce medical records.

In a prior case management direction, a Vice-Chair had ruled that the requirement to produce medical records was moot because the applicant was only pursuing general damages.

The adjudicator subsequently dismissed the application for non-production without addressing the mootness ruling or providing the applicant an opportunity to make submissions on altering it.

The Divisional Court granted the application, finding that the adjudicator breached procedural fairness by implicitly overturning the prior ruling without notice or process.

The HRTO decisions were quashed and the matter remitted to a different adjudicator.

The Crown brought an application to admit the accused's prior convictions for sexual assault as similar fact evidence in their upcoming trial for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman.

The Crown argued the prior convictions, which also involved sexual assaults on unconscious women, were highly probative of identity and intention.

The accused opposed, arguing the acts were dissimilar and the evidence was highly prejudicial.

The court allowed the application, finding that the prior convictions went beyond showing general disposition and that their probative value outweighed the potential for reasoning prejudice.

The defendants moved to withdraw deemed admissions resulting from their failure to respond to a request to admit.

The defendants claimed their former counsel inadvertently missed the request in his email, but failed to provide an affidavit from the former counsel despite prior judicial direction to do so.

The court found the defendants failed to provide a reasonable explanation for the default, particularly given their failure to respond to a subsequent letter referencing the deemed admissions.

The motion was dismissed.

The plaintiff sought an interlocutory injunction to reinstate him as president and co-director of a corporation following a dispute over a share purchase agreement.

The plaintiff had previously signed an irrevocable resignation as part of a settlement.

The court dismissed the motion, finding the plaintiff failed to establish a strong prima facie case to resile from his resignation, and noted he had adequate remedies under the Business Corporations Act.

In a high-conflict family trial, the court determined parenting, child support, occupation rent, and related relief after property issues were settled mid-trial.

Applying s. 16 of the Divorce Act, the court held that despite serious parental conflict, both parents were capable and loving, but neither demonstrated sufficient cooperation to justify a material change in parenting time.

The existing parenting schedule was continued with detailed holiday, communication, and travel-notice terms, and joint decision making was ordered with use of Our Family Wizard.

The restraining order request was denied, occupation rent was allowed in a quantified amount, and ongoing table child support was fixed effective January 1, 2026, with retroactive support left for confirmation and potential further submissions.

The applicants, a law firm and its named partners, sought a permanent injunction requiring the respondent to remove defamatory online publications and prohibiting further defamatory material.

The respondent had published over one hundred posts on X and articles on a website targeting the applicants in reprisal for their representation of a client in a prior defamation action that resulted in a $1.75 million default judgment against the respondent.

The respondent did not dispute authorship of the posts and admitted to making the publications, though he claimed they were motivated by concern over inappropriate material reaching children.

The court found the posts were defamatory, lowering the applicants' reputation in the eyes of a reasonable person, and constituted relentless personal and professional attacks on lawyers for representing a client.

A permanent injunction was granted with costs fixed at $500.