Court Of Appeal Summaries (January 5 To 9, 2015)

The following are the Ontario Court of Appeal Summaries for the week of January 5-9, 2015. Noteworthy topics covered below include abuse of process, appellate procedure, negligence and expert evidence admissibility. A special mention to Blaney's own Roger Horst and Rafal Szymanski for their positive result in Meady v. Greyhound Canada Transportation Corp. A job well done!

Ridel v. Cassin, 2015 ONCA 1

[Strathy C.J.O., Feldman and Lauwers JJ.A.]

Counsel: P. Le Vay and N. Greckol-Herlich, for the appellants P. Anisman, for the respondents

Keywords: Costs Endorsement

The parties agreed that the costs award made by the trial judge should be set aside and replaced with an order that the appellants/respondents by cross-appeal shall pay to the respondents costs in the amount of $355,000, plus disbursements and applicable taxes.

Tags: Costs Endorsement

1250264 Ontario Inc. v. Pet Valu Canada Inc., 2015 ONCA 5

[Pardu J.A. (In Chambers)]

Counsel: J. Leclerc, for the moving party/responding party by way of cross-motion D. Ronde and S. Holland, for the responding party/moving party by way of cross-motion

Keywords: Appellate Procedure, Notice of Appeal, Time for Filing, Extension of Time

Facts:

This appeal arises from the summary dismissal of two common issues raised in this class proceeding, namely: (i) whether the defendant breached its contractual duty to the Class Members at any time during the Class Period by failing to share Volume Rebates with them; and (ii) if the defendant's conduct did not constitute a breach of the Franchise Agreement, whether the defendant was unjustly enriched by such conduct.

The motion judge's decision dismissing these two common issues was released on October 31, 2014. Due to an administrative error, 1250264 Ontario Inc. ("125") made no effort to file its notice of appeal until December 10, 2014, when it was refused from filing because it was defective.

125 seeks an order: (i) extending the time to file its notice of appeal; and (ii) extending the time to perfect the appeal, so that appeals from related orders in this action can be dealt with at the same time as this appeal.

Pet Valu Canada Inc. ("Pet Valu") brought a motion to strike the notice of appeal on the basis that the generic grounds of appeal give no hint of any alleged errors committed by the motion judge. If this appeal is permitted to proceed, Pet Valu seeks an order for security for costs on the ground that the appeal is frivolous and vexatious, and on the ground that 125 has insufficient assets to satisfy any judgment for costs.

Holding: 125's motions to extend the time to file the notice of appeal and to extend the time to perfect the appeal is dismissed. Pet Valu's motion is also dismissed as it is now moot.

Reasoning:

The justice of the case does not require that an extension be given because, although very little is required in these circumstances to show that there is some basis for an appeal, there is no indication in 125's materials that this appeal has merit. The affidavit filed in support of the motion is silent on the issue of merits, and the notice of appeal is so general that I am unable to construct any basis for an arguable appeal from the motion judge's factual findings. The motion judge found that Pet Valu shared all the volume rebates with the franchisees. This factual conclusion is...