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Good evening,

Following are our summaries of the civil decisions of the Court of Appeal for Ontario released this past week.

Topics covered included:

1. A review of the conflicting case law relating to the deduction of statutory accident benefits (“SABs”) paid before a trial from the amount of tort damages awarded at trial. The Court rejected the approach that requires temporal and qualitative matching of SABs to heads of tort damages (the strict matching approach), finding that that approach was based on an earlier, outdated statutory scheme and case law, the authority of which had been overtaken by amendments to the legislation. The Court instead opted for a “silo” approach, which requires the tort award only to match generally with the broad corresponding SABs categories or silos.

2. A review of the test for lifting an automatic stay pending appeal of a money judgment.

3. Several appeals from motions for summary judgment in the context of equitable set-off, agreements of purchase and sale of land, and a matrimonial proceeding.

4. Discoverability.

5. A pleadings motion regarding whether lawyers owe a duty to third parties to verify the accuracy of the information contained in affidavits they draft or commission (no).

6. Setting aside separation agreements for non-disclosure under section 56(4) of the Family Law Act.

7. The Court’s consideration of a series of questions concerning successive employment contracts executed after the sale of a business partially owned by the employee.

8. We included a summary of provincial/regulatory offences decision in the environmental context. The Court made it clear that minimum fines are not to be varied by a trial judge using their sentencing discretion except in very exceptional circumstances. The decision will have broad application across all manner of regulatory offences moving forward, from environmental to workplace safety, and a whole host of other contexts.

Continue Reading BLANEY’S APPEALS: ONTARIO COURT OF APPEAL SUMMARIES (DECEMBER 3 – 7, 2018)

Jump To: Table of Contents | Civil Decisions | Short Civil Decisions | Criminal Decisions

Good evening.

Following are our summaries of the civil decisions of the Court of Appeal for Ontario released this past week.

Topics covered this week included:

  1. the interpretation of a mortgage assumption provision in an agreement of purchase and sale of land;
  2. the interpretation of an early payment provision in a vendor take-back mortgage;
  3. the interpretation of a municipal by-law;
  4. the calculation of performance bonus entitlements and shareholder bonuses in a wrongful dismissal context;
  5. setting aside transfers of assets between common law spouses following separation; and
  6. several procedural issues such as jurisdiction to hear an appeal in a judicial review context, costs in a class proceedings context, amending pleadings in the face of a limitation period issue, stay pending appeal, and stays of appeals as a sanction for failing to comply with a court order.

Continue Reading BLANEY’S APPEALS: ONTARIO COURT OF APPEAL SUMMARIES (NOVEMBER 26 – 30, 2018)

Jump To: Table of Contents | Civil Decisions | Short Civil Decisions | Criminal Decisions | Ontario Review Board

Good evening.

There were five substantive civil decisions released by the Court of Appeal this week. There were many criminal decisions released.

In Wall v. Shaw, the Court determined that there is no limitation period to objecting to accounts in an application to pass accounts in an estates matter. A notice of objection is not a “proceeding” within the meaning of the Limitations Act, 2002.

In Thunder Bay (City) v. Canadian National Railway Company, the Court denied CN Rail a stay of its ruling handed down earlier this year pending leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. The Court held that the potential harm to CN was quantified at four to six million dollars if a stay was not granted and CN Rail’s appeal was ultimately successful. However, balanced against that was the fact that CN contributed to the possibility of irreparable harm by failing to move more expeditiously for leave and that the potential for serious impacts on Thunder Bay and the First Nation increased the longer the reopening of the Bridge was delayed. Ultimately, however, the Court felt that the proposed appeal did not have sufficient merit to warrant the granting of a stay. Continue Reading BLANEY’S APPEALS: ONTARIO COURT OF APPEAL SUMMARIES (NOVEMBER 19 – 23, 2018)