William M. LeMay

The appellant sought judicial review and appealed a Licence Appeal Tribunal decision finding that her application for statutory accident benefits was time-barred.

The appellant argued the insurer's notice of refusal did not comply with s. 54 of the SABS because it failed to detail all levels of appeal and misleadingly stated a hard two-year limitation period without explaining discoverability.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, holding that s. 54 only requires notice of the right to dispute the refusal at the Tribunal, not subsequent appeal rights.

The Court also found the notice was not misleading, as detailing discoverability principles could detract from the clarity of the warning and confuse claimants.

Following the settlement of an estate matter, the defendant failed to complete required administrative tasks, including filing tax returns, necessitating multiple case conferences.

The plaintiff sought costs for these post-settlement proceedings.

The court found the defendant's conduct in delaying the administration and failing to follow court directions to be egregious.

The court ordered the defendant to personally pay the plaintiff's costs on a substantial indemnity basis in the amount of $8,400, to be deducted from his share of the estate funds held in trust.

The parties separated following a tumultuous marriage marked by allegations of intimate partner violence.

The respondent was criminally charged and repeatedly breached bail conditions by contacting the applicant, leading to a 60-day jail sentence.

The respondent brought a motion for supervised parenting time, while the applicant sought a section 30 assessment before any parenting time occurred.

The court ordered a section 30 assessment to be conducted by a psychologist, funded initially from the parties' joint line of credit.

The court dismissed the respondent's motion for supervised parenting time, finding it contrary to the children's best interests given the respondent's ongoing coercive conduct, indirect attempts to contact the applicant, and the children's current behavioral challenges.

The parties separated after a high-conflict marriage marked by the applicant's alcohol abuse and incidents of domestic violence.

The applicant sought a 2/2/3 parenting schedule and split decision-making responsibility, relying on an OCL report.

The respondent challenged the OCL report, seeking final decision-making on all issues and a schedule with less parenting time for the applicant, citing ongoing concerns about alcohol and safety.

The court found the applicant had made significant progress in addressing his alcohol issues and that the respondent had a tendency to make unilateral decisions and minimize the applicant's role.

The court adopted the OCL's recommendations, ordering a 2/2/3 parenting schedule and splitting decision-making responsibility, with the applicant having final say over education and counselling, and the respondent over health and recreation.

The appellant dentist appealed a Discipline Committee decision finding him guilty of professional misconduct and revoking his license.

The Committee found the appellant had sexual relations with two patients, failed to document informed consent, breached opioid prescribing guidelines, and directed staff to file false insurance claims.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding no palpable and overriding errors of fact or errors in principle.

The court upheld the mandatory revocation of the appellant's license and the Committee's costs award of over $450,000, and awarded $15,000 in costs for the appeal.

The Regional Municipality of York appealed an Ontario Land Tribunal decision awarding approximately $2.4 million in compensation to a landowner for the expropriation of a vacant lot.

The appellant argued the Tribunal erred by failing to screen out the expropriation scheme's effect on the property's value under s. 14(4)(b) of the Expropriations Act, and by improperly assessing the risk of land dedications.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding no legal error in the Tribunal's application of the Pointe Gourde principle and concluding that the Tribunal's factual findings regarding land dedications were entitled to deference.

Following a successful motion by the plaintiffs to remove the defendants' counsel for a conflict of interest, the court determined the costs of the motion.

The court declined to award costs against the removed counsel personally under Rule 57.07, finding it was a matter between the counsel and his former clients.

However, the court found that the plaintiffs' offer to settle was a valid Rule 49 offer that they had beaten, entitling them to partial indemnity costs up to the date of the offer and full indemnity costs thereafter.

The court fixed costs at $13,500, payable by the defendants.

The applicant challenged LAT and HRTO decisions arising from the denial of statutory accident benefits after the insurer relied on an IME report without producing the physician for cross-examination.

The court held that the LAT lacked jurisdiction to issue a second reconsideration decision more than a year later and while appeal and judicial review proceedings were already perfected, as that step was not taken within a reasonable time and offended functus officio and finality principles.

The court further accepted that the earlier LAT decisions could not stand because reliance on the challenged expert report without cross-examination breached procedural fairness.

The LAT and HRTO decisions were quashed and remitted, with costs of $15,000 awarded against the insurer on the LAT matter, but no costs awarded to the applicant on the HRTO matter.

The applicant sought judicial review of an Ontario Labour Relations Board decision finding that its employees were provincially regulated for labour relations purposes.

The applicant, a track welding company performing work primarily for interprovincial railways, argued its operations fell under derivative federal jurisdiction.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, holding that the Board correctly applied the derivative jurisdiction test.

The court found the applicant's work involved maintenance of railway infrastructure rather than the operation of the railways themselves, and thus did not meet the exceptional threshold for federal jurisdiction.

The defendants brought a motion to dismiss the plaintiff's action under Rule 2.1.01 of the Rules of Civil Procedure.

The plaintiff, a self-represented litigant, alleged a 30-year pattern of malicious prosecution, false imprisonment, and harassment by the police and Crown agents.

The court found that the majority of the claims had already been dismissed in two previous actions and were therefore an abuse of process.

The new allegations regarding minor police interactions did not establish any tortious conduct.

The court concluded the action was frivolous, vexatious, and an abuse of process, and dismissed the claim.

The appellants appealed a decision finding them liable for corporate oppression, removing them as directors, and ordering audited financial statements.

They challenged the application judge's refusal to order a winding up of the corporation and the award of substantial indemnity costs.

They also sought to raise a new limitation period defence regarding the financial statements.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding no error in the discretionary refusal to wind up the company or the costs award, and declined to hear the new limitation period argument due to an inadequate evidentiary record.

The appellant appealed and sought judicial review of a Licence Appeal Tribunal (LAT) decision finding she failed to establish catastrophic impairment under Criterion 8 of the Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule.

The appellant argued the LAT adjudicator breached procedural fairness by imposing strict time limits on witness examinations, making unequal evidentiary rulings regarding expert psychiatric testimony, and admitting a late surveillance report.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, holding that the adjudicator's procedural choices were within her discretion to control the tribunal's process and did not result in unfairness.

The court also found no error of law in the LAT's application of the test for catastrophic impairment.

Following the dismissal of the defendant insurer's motion for summary judgment, the successful plaintiffs sought partial indemnity costs of $21,666.43.

The defendant argued for an award of $8,000.

Applying the factors under Rule 57.01, the court noted the moderate complexity of the matter but recognized the importance of the issues and the defendant's failure to confirm the motion, which resulted in costs thrown away.

The court fixed costs payable to the plaintiffs at $15,000 all-inclusive.

The plaintiffs brought a motion to remove the defendants' counsel of record, arguing that the lawyer was a necessary witness in the underlying estate litigation.

The lawyer had previously acted for the defendants in registering a section 71 notice against the deceased mother's property and in drafting a subsequent Power of Attorney and Will, all of which were central to the dispute over fiduciary duties.

The court applied the Essa factors and concluded that the lawyer was a material witness whose evidence would be necessary to explain the rationale behind the impugned transactions.

The court found that allowing the lawyer to act as counsel would create an irretrievable conflict between his obligations to the court and his clients.

The motion was granted and the lawyer was removed from the record.

In a contentious estates proceeding, the court determined costs following an earlier dismissal of the moving party's request for payout of sale proceeds held in trust.

Both sides sought partial indemnity costs and each claimed success, but the court found divided success and held that neither side was completely successful.

Applying Rule 57.01 principles, the court found the amounts sought were excessive in light of proportionality and mixed results.

The court also found litigation conduct by both sides increased costs, while assigning primary responsibility for failing to add the estate party to the estate trustee.

Costs were fixed at $5,000 payable by one responding party to the moving party.

Following convictions after a judge-alone trial for sexual assault, uttering threats, arson, and break and enter arising from intimate-partner violence incidents, the court determined a fit custodial sentence by balancing denunciation, deterrence, rehabilitation, and totality.

The court rejected a conditional sentence despite substantial post-offence rehabilitation and sobriety efforts, emphasizing the gravity of the sexual assault and intentional fire-setting.

The court imposed consecutive and concurrent terms, reduced the aggregate sentence under totality, and further reduced it for restrictive bail conditions in part.

The court declined to impose a Sex Offender Information Registration Act order under s. 490.012(3), finding it unnecessary on the facts.

The City of Brampton sought costs after successfully moving to strike portions of the applicants' claim regarding the Tamil Genocide Monument.

The applicants argued that no costs should be awarded because they were public interest litigants and of limited financial means.

The court found that while the underlying constitutional challenge was public interest litigation, the struck claims under the Building Code and Planning Act were meritless fishing expeditions.

The court rejected the impecuniosity argument due to a lack of evidentiary foundation.

The applicants were ordered to pay $10,000 in partial indemnity costs.

Dispute over the calculation of a CPI-based Indexing Factor for annuity payments under a testamentary trust.

The testatrix's will established a testamentary trust providing the respondent beneficiary with an annuity, with the Indexing Factor to be determined by the trustees using the Consumer Price Index.

The respondent beneficiary challenged the trustee's CPI calculation methodology, arguing the wrong CPI chart, wrong date, and wrong calculation approach were used.

The court held that the will conferred discretion on the trustees to determine the Indexing Factor, and that determination was conclusive and binding on all beneficiaries absent bad faith.

In the alternative, the court found the trustee's calculations were correct, consistent with Statistics Canada methodology and the will's terms.

The defendant insurer brought a Rule 21 motion to dismiss the plaintiffs' action, which arose after a house fire destroyed a mortgaged property on which the plaintiffs held a registered mortgage.

The insurance policy named a different entity (Community Trust Company) as the mortgagee under the standard mortgage clause, not the plaintiffs.

The court declined to strike the contract claim, finding no binding Ontario authority that the standard mortgage clause is limited strictly to the named mortgagee, and noting language ambiguity identified in out-of-province jurisprudence.

The court also found the rectification claim was properly pleaded, as the statement of claim identified the parties' common and continuing intention to protect the actual registered mortgagee.

The unjust enrichment claim was likewise permitted to continue, with case management directed to coordinate with a companion action.

All three branches of the Rule 21 motion were dismissed.

The plaintiff sought leave, after the action had been set down for trial, to bring motions to disqualify a defence medical expert for alleged conflict and to remove defence counsel for alleged improper disclosure.

Applying the post-set-down leave test, the court held there was no substantial or unexpected change in circumstances and no manifest injustice warranting further interlocutory motions.

The court found the moving party knew or ought to have known of the alleged conflict before consenting to the examination, and did not raise the issue in a timely manner.

The court further held the high threshold for removal of counsel was not met on the evidentiary record.

Leave to bring both proposed motions was denied.