Articles 2025

Please find below our summaries of the civil decisions of the Court of Appeal for the week of August 19, 2024.

Municipalities are being kept on their toes with the recent Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC”) decision in R v Greater Sudbury (City). The SCC held that owners of a construction project fall within the definition of an “employer” under the Occupation Health and Safety Act (“OHSA”) and are subject to the required duties and liabilities of an employer. Moving forward, municipalities will have a difficult time insulating themselves from liability under the OHSA when contracting out services.

Please find below our summaries of the civil decisions of the Court of Appeal for the week of August 12, 2024.

Haider Ashraf, in his paper, "Balancing Security and Rights: Re-evaluating IRPA’s Criminal Inadmissibility Provisions and Charter Compliance” recommends a re-evaluation of IRPA’s inadmissibility provisions to better protect the rights of permanent residents and align Canadian policies with global human rights principles. The author welcomes any comments or conversations from colleagues on the topic.

Two recent BC Court of Appeal decisions revive support for Canadian data breach class actions after the viability of such proceedings was recently stifled by a trio of decisions by the Ontario Court of Appeal.

It is expected that prior to any elective treatment, a physician owes a duty to the patient to provide adequate disclosure of risks. This duty has been expanded over the years to include all advising doctors, even if they are not involved in the treatment directly. It has also been expanded to include “disclosing the nature of the proposed treatment and any material, special, or unusual risks of the treatment." The Ontario Court of Appeal recently applied these duties of care.

It is a trite law of human nature that honesty is the best policy. And it is trite law, as in the actual law, that this is especially true for parties entering insurance agreements. In Davies v. AIG Insurance Company of Canada, 2024 ONCA 509, the Ontario Court of Appeal reversed a decision regarding an insurance coverage determination.

The OBA Trusts and Estates Law Section’s Public Affairs and Policy Committee had a busy 2023/2024 term, having an ambitious list of projects on their docket. In this article, Angelique Moss and Demetre Vasilounis (co-Chairs of the committee) highlight some of these projects.

The Ontario Bar Association’s annual Evening with Estate Judges event, put on by the OBA’s Trusts and Estates Law section, took place on June 10, 2024. In this article, Sydney Osmar offers some key take aways and discusses The Estate List Amicus Pilot Project.