Good afternoon.

Please find below our summaries of last week’s civil decisions of the Court of Appeal for Ontario.

Topics covered included the following:

  1. Condo law – Responsibility for repairing exclusive use common elements in a condominium under the condominium’s declaration and the Condominium Act, 1998 (unit owners were found responsible for repairing their exclusive use chimneys).
  2. Rights of Way – The scope of a right of way to access a cottage beach (did not include the right to drive a boat to the beach to launch and retrieve it).
  3. Family Law – The limitation period for setting aside a marriage contract (there is no limitation period, since the Court determined that this involves merely seeking a declaration with no consequential relief – in a concurring opinion Brown J.A. agreed on the result but disagreed that there was no applicable limitation period).
  4. Administrative Law – A labour arbitrator had exclusive jurisdiction over disciplinary proceedings against graduate students who were also unionized teaching assistants in respect of the York University strike of 2018. The University had no jurisdiction to discipline the students as a result of specific legislation that ended the strike.
  5. Commercial Leases – A notice of breach and termination need not include a demand for compensation for the breach under ss. 19(1) of the Commercial Tenancies Act. Mere demand for remedying of the breach is sufficient to constitute a valid notice permitting termination and re-entry.
John Polyzogopoulos
Blaney McMurtry LLP
416.593.2953 Email

Continue Reading COURT OF APPEAL SUMMARIES (July 20 to 24, 2020)

Good afternoon.

Please find below our summaries of last week’s civil decisions of the Court of Appeal for Ontario.

Topics covered included family law, an appeal from a medmal jury verdict, summary judgment on malicious prosecution and related claims, the presumption of undue influence in the context of a wife’s guarantee of corporate debts of a public company that was also in many respects a family business, and the recoverability of disbursements for expert fees where the expert’s evidence was of very little value.

John Polyzogopoulos
Blaney McMurtry LLP
416.593.2953 Email

Continue Reading COURT OF APPEAL SUMMARIES (July 13 – 17, 2020)

Good afternoon.

Please find below our summaries of last week’s civil decisions of the Court of Appeal for Ontario.

In a 68-page decision in Carmichael v. GlaxoSmithKline Inc., a tragic case, the Court set out the test for determining whether a limitation period was suspended as a result of the plaintiff’s incapacity under ss. 7(1)(a) of the Limitations Act, 2002.

In Tran v. Bloorston Farms Ltd., the Court reviewed the Rule in Foss v Harbottle, which prohibits a shareholder from suing for damage caused to the corporation. The Court adopted the test set out in a UK House of Lords decision in 2000 for when a shareholder can sue for diminution in value of her shares in a corporation by way of an exception to the Rule.

Other topics covered included:

  1. the enforceability of forum selection and choice of law clauses in a case relating to the unreasonable withholding of consent to assign various leases and credit card agreements in both Ontario and Quebec.
  2. the intersection of condominium and municipal/planning law;
  3. the interpretation of a Tarion Addendum clause in an agreement of purchase and sale of land in the receivership context;
  4. defamation and negligence in respect of withdrawn charges of bid-rigging;
  5. equitable assignments of choses in action in the slip and fall and litigation funding context;
  6. custody in a high-conflict matrimonial dispute;
  7. costs where nominal damages are awarded for breach of Charter rights; and
  8. summary judgment on claims by and against a bank in respect of various credit facilities.
John Polyzogopoulos
Blaney McMurtry LLP
416.593.2953 Email

Continue Reading COURT OF APPEAL SUMMARIES (July 6 – 10, 2020)