Litigants sometimes believe they must allege maximal goals if they are going to achieve their actual objective. If you needed a fresh caution against overreaching, the costs ruling in Guttin v. Creber, 2026 ONSC 4507, delivers it. After an oppression dispute involving B Con Engineering Inc. and BCE Realty Ltd., the Ontario Superior Court fixed costs against the notionally successful applicants. This was because, despite the applicants’ limited success on…
The Ontario Court of Appeal’s recent decisions in Baker v. Van Dolder’s Home Team Inc. and Li v. Wayfair Canada ULC may be among its most significant in the field of employment law in the past decade. Certainly, the volume of commentary on these cases would suggest that they are. In simple terms, the Court was tasked with reconciling two lower court decisions that looked at very similar wording in…
The legal doctrine of res judicata exists to prevent the same dispute from being litigated more than once. Res judicata is grounded in two principles of public policy. First, the state has an interest in upholding finality in litigation; second, that an individual is not punished more than once for the same offence. The doctrine has at least two distinct forms: issue estoppel and cause of action estoppel. Issue estoppel…
I believe contract law has seven wonders. To this day, they remain crucial structures that form the foundation of contract law. Rooted in ancient wisdom, they continue to impact both legal practice and the evolution of other legal principles, yet may be overlooked from time to time. Please join my brief tour of these seven pillar concepts. If you are a lawyer, I hope it serves as a handy refresher;…
Handwritten codicils to wills can be valid. But when suspicious circumstances exist, the onus shifts to the party seeking to prove the codicil. The proponent must prove, on a balance of probabilities, that the testator knew and approved the document and had testamentary capacity at signing. The Ontario Court of Appeal’s decision in Schickedanz v. Schickedanz illustrates this burden in practice. Elma Schickedanz signed a handwritten codicil on May 9,…
When a Will reflects coercion rather than free choice, Ontario courts can step in. A recent decision shows how judges assess “undue influence” and what evidence matters most. In Ontario, a Will can be challenged where the person who made it was effectively coerced into signing, such that the document reflects someone else’s wishes, not the testator’s. That is exactly what the court found in Abbruzese v. Tucci, a case…
The Court of Appeal continues to signal that common sense – viewed through the lens of what is commercially reasonable – should prevail when interpreting business agreements. We have written about the subject here in the context of a share purchase agreement. The Court of Appeal recently applied that same kind of practical approach in the interpretation of a commercial lease. In Convocation Flowers Incorporated v. Anisa Holdings Ltd., 2026…
We have previously written about lenders attempting to charge a three-month interest fee (or “penalty”, or “bonus”) after a default by a mortgagor Three-Months’ Mortgage Interest – To Charge or Not to Charge – CP LLP. It is settled law that, after a default, a mortgagee cannot charge such a fee, as it violates section 8 of the Interest Act. Similarly, mortgage terms that purport to increase the interest rate…
Project Freeway Inc (“PF”) sold its shares in a group of companies to ABC Technologies Inc. (“ABC”) for 165 million dollars. US26 million dollars of the purchase price was to be paid by way of an earn out if ABC hit certain performance targets. A dispute arose between PF and ABC whether the earn out provision had been triggered. PF asserted that a sale-leaseback arrangement entered into by ABC with…
The transportation of auto parts, finished vehicles, and other freight connected to the integrated cross-border assembly of automobiles makes up a significant part of total freight volume in the Canadian trucking and transportation industry. In recent weeks, both Stellantis (Brampton) and General Motors (Ingersoll) have made announcements about shifting production from Ontario factories to the United States. Ford’s Oakville assembly plant is currently shuttered as it retools for a planned…
