Articles 2023

Members of the OBA Trusts and Estates Section met in September for the first Brown Bag Lunch of the 2022-2023 term after taking a break for July and August. Attendees eagerly jumped back into the discussion, raising questions about joint accounts, the Calmusky decision, and incorrect information received from the Ministry of Finance.

This article summarizes Le Feuvre v Enterprise Rent-A-Car Canada Company, 2022 ONSC 4136, in which the Ontario Superior Court of Justice dismissed the plaintiff’s motion for certification of a proposed employment misclassification class action due to a lack of a factual basis for a common claim. The court also commented on the need for a viable methodology for certifying an aggregate damages claim.

RESPs are a great tool to save money for a child’s post-secondary education. But who actually owns the funds in an RESP? The recent decision of Labatte v Labatte considered the matter of an RESP created by spouses who later divorced, and the question of when an RESP might be held in trust.

The last Brown Bag Lunch of 2021-2022 was held in June. OBA members gathered, as usual, to discuss interesting practice questions and to share their experiences. Topics discussed in June included issues relating to the storage of original Wills and what constitutes a first dealing.

This article summarizes N&C Transportation Ltd. v. Navistar International Corporation, 2022 BCCA 164, in which the British Columbia Court of Appeal set out the factors applicable when weighing the benefits of a multi‑jurisdictional class proceeding against competing extra-provincial actions, including where a proposed settlement has been reached.

This article summarizes the Court of Appeal’s decision in Wong v Pretium Resources Inc., 2022 ONCA 549, which confirms that the reliability of information can be relevant to determining the materiality of information under Ontario's Securities Act.

This article summarizes a recent certification motion emphasizing that the scope of a fiduciary duty is not always the same. When alleging a breach of fiduciary duty, class counsel should carefully consider the nature of that relationship.

Following are this week's summaries of the Court of Appeal for Ontario for the week of September 26, 2022.

Following are this week’s summaries of the Court of Appeal for Ontario for the week of September 12, 2022.

In the pharmaceutical industry, patentees occasionally find new uses for patented drugs. In those cases, courts have long held that they can obtain new patents on subsets of their old patents – called “selection patents” – if those subsets have “special advantages” not disclosed in the old patents. But what happens if the patentee doesn’t find a new use, but finds that a subset is more effective for its original uses?