Articles

OBA members met in March for the monthly Brown Bag Lunch session. Topics discussed included the current turnaround time for probate applications, and the recent Grattan v Grattan decision in which the court relied on the new substantial compliance provision of the Succession Law Reform Act.

Following are this week’s summaries of the civil decisions of Court of Appeal for Ontario for the week of March 27 to 31, 2023. There were only two substantive decisions. One was a commercial leasing matter, and the other was a receivership matter.

This article summarizes an important medical negligence class proceeding decision that addresses the use of circumstantial evidence to support findings of negligence and discusses common, class-wide findings of breach of the standard of care and causation. The Court of Appeal approved of the lower court’s reliance on statistical evidence with respect to rates of infection and agreed that there was a causal link between the class members’ infections and the Defendant’s subpar IPAC practices.

This update features a round-up of the important developments in the Ontario energy sector between January and March (and the first days of April). The author has scoured the regulatory landscape so that you can stay informed and ahead of the curve in this rapidly changing environment.

This article summarizes Curtis v. Medcan Health Management Inc. 2022 ONSC 5176, in which the Ontario Superior Court of Justice held that class actions are preferable to ESA claims for employment cases.

In its recent decision, Skymark Finance Corporation v Ontario, 2023 ONCA 234 , the Ontario Court of Appeal took the opportunity to comment on the importance of immediate disclosure of settlement minutes to other parties in an action and to clarify the meaning of the phrase “to change the entirety of the litigation landscape."

Federal Court confirms CRA can control its own processes in relation to penalty and interest relief at the objection stage.

Expert witnesses play an important, and often decisive, role in litigation. Tax disputes are no different, as experts regularly testify on matters such as those involving asset valuations, transfer pricing or scientific research and experimental development. It is a truism that the first obligation of the expert is to the court to which the expert is called to assist and not to the party calling the expert.