The Court Of Appeal Addresses Various Aspects Of Appellate Review In Di Gregorio v Sunwing Vacations Inc.

In Di Gregorio v Sunwing Vacations Inc. 1, the Court of Appeal allowed an appeal from the decision of a motion judge dismissing the appellants' claim based on a foreign limitation period. While the facts underlying the motion judge's and the Court of Appeal's decisions are not unusual for cases that raise the issue of the courts' jurisdiction to hear a matter (which often involve injuries or damages that are sustained by Ontario claimants vacationing abroad), the decision itself is somewhat unusual given the bases on which the appeal was granted and the nature of the deficiencies in the motion judge's decision.

The appellants purchased a vacation package to a resort in the Dominican Republic through Sunwing Vacations Inc. Sunwing had a contract with Perfect Tours NV with respect to bookings at the resort. Perfect Tours, in turn, was party to a hotel management agreement between AMR Resort Management, LLC ("AMR") and a Dominican company that owned the resort. It was alleged that two of the appellants were standing on a hotel room balcony at the resort when the balcony railing gave way, causing them to fall to the ground and sustain injuries. The appellants alleged that AMR and AM Resort, LLC ("AM") operated the resort at all materials times.

The appellants commenced four separate actions in Ontario. The respondents AMR and AM, or one of the two, were parties to each of the four actions and moved to stay the actions against them. Collectively, they argued that the Ontario courts did not have jurisdiction over the dispute and were not a convenient forum for the actions. Alternatively, if the Ontario courts did have jurisdiction, AMR and AM argued that the laws of the Dominican Republic govern the action and that the limitation period to claim in tort of six months under the Dominican Republic law had expired. The motion judge dealt with the limitation issue without addressing the jurisdiction argument, and determined that the laws of the Dominican Republic applied and that the action could only be in tort as the appellants had no contractual relationship with AMR or AM. Therefore, the claims were statute-barred.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal found that the motion judge made an error of law by declining to consider the issue of whether the Ontario courts had jurisdiction and by "inexplicably jump[ing] to an analysis of the law of the Dominican Republic". The jurisdictional analysis was required pursuant to the Club Resorts v Van Breda2...