W. Gerald Punnett

This decision addresses a motion to change parenting and support orders concerning an 11-year-old child.

The court found a material change in circumstances, including significant parental conflict and family violence, warranting a change from joint custody to sole decision-making and primary residence with the mother.

The father’s conduct, including withholding the child, social media harassment, and failure to comply with court orders, was found harmful to the child.

The court ordered supervised parenting time for the father, restricted his social media activity, and granted police enforcement of parenting orders.

Child support arrears were calculated with income imputed to the father due to non-disclosure.

The respondent brought a motion for summary judgment to dismiss the applicant's second Motion to Change a final child support order.

The applicant sought to reduce child support and rescind arrears, arguing a material change in circumstances and new evidence.

The court found no new evidence that was not available at the original trial and no material change in circumstances, as the applicant remained intentionally unemployed.

The court granted summary judgment, dismissing the applicant's Motion to Change, and ordered her to pay all outstanding costs and obtain leave before any further proceedings related to child support due to persistent non-compliance with court orders.

The applicant and respondent separated after a 10-year relationship.

The applicant sought an interest in the respondent's home, claiming unjust enrichment and a joint family venture.

The court found a joint family venture existed and awarded the applicant half the net value of the home.

The court also addressed parenting time for their special needs child, ordering unsupervised access conditional on the respondent providing clean drug tests due to a history of opioid addiction.

Furthermore, the court found both parties had misappropriated settlement funds belonging to the child and ordered the respondent to repay the funds into court.

The plaintiff sued for damages, claiming an equitable life estate or option to purchase a residential property based on an unwritten agreement.

The plaintiff had originally owned the property but lost it to foreclosure, after which he remained as a tenant under successive owners.

The court found the plaintiff's claims to be entirely fabricated and contradicted by documentary evidence, including a lease in which he explicitly released all claims to the property.

The action was dismissed.

The applicant condominium corporation brought an application for a compliance order against the respondent unit owners, who continued to smoke on their balcony in violation of a newly passed rule prohibiting smoking on exclusive use balconies.

The respondents argued that they owned a portion of the balcony exclusively, that the rule was improperly passed, and that the rule was unreasonable or should have included a grandparenting clause.

The court found that the entire balcony was an exclusive use common element, the rule was properly passed, and the rule was reasonable given the context of second-hand smoke and nuisance.

The court granted the application and ordered the respondents to cease smoking on their balcony immediately.

The appellant appealed a sentencing order imposing 15 days in jail, to be served on weekends, for contempt of an order relating to the passing of accounts of his aunt's estate.

The Court of Appeal found that the sentencing judge erred in principle by considering that the appellant had not put forward a plan for adequate supervision of house arrest terms in concluding that a conditional sentence was not appropriate.

The court noted that the appellant had purged his contempt, was a lawyer with over 45 years of practice, was 73 years old with no prior convictions or contempt findings, and that his non-compliance arose from a failure to understand and appreciate the importance of complying with the order rather than callous disregard for court authority.

The sentence was suspended and set aside.

An appeal from a Superior Court of Justice judgment was heard by the Court of Appeal for Ontario.

The appellant's counsel appeared and indicated that the matter had been resolved on consent.

The appeal was abandoned without costs.

This endorsement addresses costs following a judgment in favour of the respondent, Mr. Delmoro, where the applicant, Ms. Thomson, was ordered to pay child support and her claims were dismissed.

Mr. Delmoro sought fixed costs of $17,151.72, while Ms. Thomson proposed $6,936.33.

The court applied Rule 24 of the Family Law Rules, noting the presumption of costs for the successful party.

Ms. Thomson's conduct was deemed unreasonable due to non-compliance with interim orders, failure to withdraw a meritless claim, and lack of settlement offers.

The court found Mr. Delmoro's requested costs reasonable and fixed them at $17,151.72, with $15,000 specifically allocated to child support enforcement through the Family Responsibility Office.

The applicant, Joan Thomson, sought spousal support and a declaration of unjust enrichment.

The respondent, Thomas Victor Delmoro, sought child support.

The parties, who cohabited for 27 years and have two children, separated in 2014.

The applicant failed to comply with multiple court orders for disclosure and did not attend trial, leading to the dismissal of her claims.

The court imputed an income of $60,000 per year to the applicant for child support purposes, based on her earning history and failure to provide financial information or explanation for unemployment.

Retroactive child support was ordered from April 1, 2014, and ongoing support for the remaining child, along with a contribution to Section 7 expenses.

The plaintiff, 864401 Ontario Limited, brought a breach of contract and breach of trust claim against 944952 Ontario Limited and its directors (Dan, Ryan, and Ian McGill) concerning a property management contract.

The plaintiff alleged that 944 misappropriated funds from a trust account.

The defendants counter-claimed for airfare and argued the plaintiff repudiated the contract, entitling them to accelerated management fees.

The court found that the plaintiff did not repudiate the contract, but rather 944 breached the contract and committed a breach of trust by unilaterally transferring funds from the trust account.

Dan and Ryan McGill were found personally liable for knowingly assisting in the breach of trust, while Ian McGill was not.

The plaintiff was awarded $43,100.00, which had been paid into court, plus prejudgment and post-judgment interest.

The appellants appealed an order of Justice Price of the Superior Court of Justice dated September 28, 2017.

Following questioning from the appellate panel, the appellants abandoned their appeal.

The respondents were awarded costs of the appeal in the all-inclusive amount of $5,000.

The applicants and respondents are neighbours who disputed ownership of a patch of land behind the respondents' garage.

The applicants sought an injunction to remove a storage container placed by the respondents, claiming ownership of the land through a self-conveyance.

The respondents cross-applied for a declaration of ownership by adverse possession.

The court traced the historical conveyances and determined that neither party owned the land nor held a right of way over it; rather, it belonged to a third-party neighbour.

Both the application for an injunction and the cross-application for adverse possession were dismissed.

The plaintiffs purchased a house and later discovered extensive mold.

They sued the vendors and the home inspector, Bestcheck Inspection Services and its principal, Raymond Lecours, alleging negligence and negligent misrepresentation.

The home inspector defendants brought a motion for summary judgment, arguing they conducted the inspection according to the applicable standard of care and that the plaintiffs did not reasonably rely on any alleged misrepresentations.

The court granted summary judgment, dismissing the claims against the home inspector defendants, finding no breach of the standard of care and no reasonable reliance by the plaintiffs.

The Police Defendants brought a motion for summary judgment to dismiss the plaintiff's action for negligent investigation.

The plaintiff alleged negligent investigation regarding a fire incident, which led to his arrest and nine-month incarceration before his acquittal.

The court applied legal principles governing negligent police investigation and summary judgment, finding that the plaintiff failed to present sufficient evidence to establish a breach of the police's standard of care or to demonstrate overwhelming evidence discrediting the police's primary witnesses.

The motion for summary judgment was granted, dismissing the plaintiff's action.

The appellant appealed convictions for two counts of assault and one count of unlawful confinement arising from incidents involving his spouse.

He argued that the trial judge failed to analyze each count separately and misapplied the W.(D.) credibility framework.

The appeal court held that the trial judge properly articulated the governing legal principles, including the burden of proof and the W.(D.) analysis, and that the reasons, when read as a whole, adequately explained the credibility findings and verdicts.

The court also found no error in the trial judge’s comments regarding the defence’s failure to cross‑examine the complainant on certain allegations.

The convictions were supported by the evidence and no miscarriage of justice occurred.

The plaintiff bank sued to recover $494,425 obtained by the defendant Vincenzo Storr through fraudulent credit card cash advances.

The plaintiff sought to trace the funds into the accounts of Vincenzo's family members and related entities, arguing they were subject to a constructive trust.

The court found that Vincenzo obtained the funds by fraud and that the family members who received the funds were liable under the doctrine of knowing receipt, as the circumstances ought to have put them on inquiry.

The court granted judgment against Vincenzo and the family members who received the funds, while dismissing the claims against the corporate entities.

Following a prior application decision, both sides sought costs.

The applicant succeeded on the issue of lack of notice regarding a proposed sale of corporate assets, while the respondents succeeded on the issue concerning entitlement to certain chattels.

The court reviewed the purposes of costs awards and noted the absence of settlement offers.

Considering the mixed success and the relative importance of the issues, the court declined to award costs to either party.

The applicant shareholder sought an injunction preventing the sale of corporate real property and a mandatory order for the return of personal chattels allegedly left on the property.

The court found that the proposed sale constituted a disposition of assets outside the ordinary course of business and required a properly noticed special meeting of shareholders under the Business Corporations Act.

The applicant had received insufficient notice and was deprived of dissent rights associated with such a transaction.

The court therefore set aside the proposed sale and maintained the injunction preventing it.

However, the request for return of personal chattels was dismissed due to unresolved credibility issues and insufficient evidence on the paper record.