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Good evening.

Following are the summaries of this week’s civil decisions of the Court of Appeal for Ontario. This was an interesting week.

I would first like to congratulate two of our lawyers, Margaret Rintoul and Aly Virani, on their successful appeal in Kilitzoglou v. Cure. The Court followed the reasoning that has developed in the cases following Satva Corp. v. Creston Moly Corp. primarily in terms of clarifying the “factual matrix” that a judge may apply in the interpretation of a contract.  In this case, a rather broad interpretation by the trial judge of the facts surrounding the making of a domestic contract was held to be a flawed interpretation that contravened the actual language of the contract.  Overall, the message from the decision is a reaffirmation that the actual clear wording of a contract trumps the factual matrix and any speculation as to an intention contrary to the wording of a contract.

Continue Reading BLANEY’S APPEALS: ONTARIO COURT OF APPEAL SUMMARIES (NOVEMBER 5 – 9, 2018)

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

Good afternoon,

Following are the summaries for this week’s civil decisions of the Court of Appeal for Ontario.

There were not many substantive decisions. Perhaps the most interesting was Am-Stat Corporation v Ontario. In that case, the plaintiff sued the Ontario government for negligence or negligent misrepresentation. The plaintiff alleged that it had partly relied on a corporation profile report to approve a mortgage loan made to a corporation. The report indicated that the purported representative of the borrower who was dealing with the lender was indeed an officer and director of the borrower. It turned out to be a fraud, and the representative had no relationship to the borrower. The plaintiff lost its loan proceeds and sought to recover them from the province. The Court of Appeal upheld the lower court’s decision striking the action as disclosing no reasonable cause of action. The province is not responsible for ensuring the accuracy of the information filed on behalf of corporations. This is a reminder that corporate searches are useful investigative tools and can assist with due diligence during a transaction, but they are not determinative of anything and should not be relied upon.

Continue Reading BLANEY’S APPEALS: ONTARIO COURT OF APPEAL SUMMARIES (OCTOBER 29 – NOVEMBER 2, 2018)

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

Good evening.

Following are the summaries for this week’s civil decisions of the Court of Appeal for Ontario.

In Beaver v Hill, the Court of Appeal reiterated that although under the Family Law Rules, judges are not constrained to the normal scales of costs found in the Rules of Civil Procedures, there is no provision in the Family Law Rules that provides that costs awards should approach “full recovery costs”. In awarding costs, family law judges must apply the principles of proportionality and reasonableness set out in Rule 24(12) of the Family Law Rules.

Continue Reading BLANEY’S APPEALS: ONTARIO COURT OF APPEAL SUMMARIES (OCTOBER 22 – 26, 2018)