Articles 2020

As the courts attempt to increase trial efficiency, counsel are more than encouraged to confer prior to trial - a failure to co-operate may have costly consequences for lawyers and their clients.

There were two judgments released this week: a family law case concerning the obligation of the primary custodial parent to secure the compliance of a child to an access order in favour of the other parent; an insolvency law decision relating to circumstances in which a CCAA judge can terminate a CCAA liquidation proceeding and assign the insolvent companies into bankruptcy, thereby impacting the priority contest between secured creditors and a pension plan.

Below are summaries of the few civil decisions released by the Court of Appeal this week, followed by a list of short endorsements and criminal decisions. Topics covered include contract interpretation, limitation periods in the context of statutory accident benefits claims, and injunctions for zoning by-law violations.

An ongoing insolvency proceeding under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act can now be added to the short list of circumstances in which a court will decline to follow a forum selection clause in a commercial contract.

In Salasel v. Cuthbertson (2015 ONCA 115), the Court of Appeal provided welcome clarification on doctrine of absolute privilege, in a decision that revisited the fraught case of Hassan Rasouli.

In Ontario, either party in a civil action can demand that its case be decided by a jury. In Kempf v. Nyugen (2015 ONCA 114), the Court of Appeal for Ontario addressed the question of when a case can be removed from a jury’s hands because it is too complex, in a decision that strengthens the right to have civil cases decided in jury trials.

Below are summaries of this week’s Ontario Court of Appeal decisions. As usual, there are full summaries for the substantive civil decisions.

A summary of June 29-July 3, 2015 Ontario Court of Appeal decisions.

Below are summaries of this week’s OCA civil decisions (non-criminal). Special mention goes to our own Ian Epstein who successfully resisted an appeal from a decision of a motions judge to dismiss the claim against our client as disclosing no reasonable cause of action.