Appealing Thoughts

  Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 113 v. Ontario, 2024 ONCA 407 To reiterate, the narrow question on this appeal is whether Ontario has demonstrated a constitutionally sound justification for pre-emptively banning all TTC strikes. A law isn't unconstitutional just because a court finds that it infringes a Charter Right. Under Section 1, the government can defend the law by showing that the infringement is 'demonstrably justified'. This requires the government to show that the infringement is a proportionate measure serving a "pressing and substantial" government objective. As part of proving proportionality, the government has to show "minimal impairment" -- i.e. that there was no alternative solution which would serve the same objective, but have a smaller impact on Charter rights. Charter rights can be divided into two groups. On one side, you have rights where it is hard to prove infringement, but if it is, the government has little or no chan...

  British Columbia (Children and Family Development) v. British Columbia (Information and Privacy Commissioner), 2024 BCCA 190 In response to a freedom of information application, the Ministry asserted solicitor-client privilege over a set of documents. Section 14 of FIPPA says that the responsible minister "may" refuse to disclose privileged documents. The applicant relied on s.25 of FIPPA to claim that the documents should be produced regardless of whether or not they were privileged. Section 25 reads in part: 1) Whether or not a request for access is made, the head of a public body must, without delay, disclose to the public, to an affected group of people or to an applicant, information ... the disclosure of which is, for any other reason, clearly in the public interest. 2) Subsection (1) applies despite any other provision of this Act. The adjudicator found that the documents were privileged, and ordered the Ministry to produce the documents under s.44 of FIPPA so...

  7868073 Canada Ltd. v. 1841978 Ontario Inc., 2024 ONCA 371 In Ontario, non-competes have been banned from employment contracts. In other contracts, a term that would prevent a party from " carrying on [their] trade freely " can be nullified on public policy grounds as a restraint of trade. Is a global, perpetual, and exclusive license for the commercial exploitation of a employee's knowledge, expertise, and experience ("know-how") an unconscionable restraint of trade? For now, the ONCA is saying "no." In this case, the restraint of trade argument failed because the courts found that while the license itself was perpetual, the licensor-employee had termination rights : However, in the end, I need not resolve the issue whether restraint of trade principles apply. Even assuming that they could apply while the License Agreement was in force, I am satisfied that the restriction on [the Licensor's] use of the Licensed Rights was reasonable between t...

  1819472 Ontario Corp. v. John Barrett General Contractors Limited, 2024 ONCA 333 [24]      It is uncontroversial that where a defendant brings a successful motion for summary judgment on the basis that the action is statute-barred due to having been commenced out of time, the resulting order is final, and an appeal lies to this court. Matters are more complicated where the motion is instead dismissed. For those just joining us, the Courts of Justice Act says that an appeal from a "final order" of the SCJ goes to the ONCA (otherwise the appeal generally lies to the Divisional Court). Unfortunately, the CJA does not define a "final order." If a summary judgment motion is dismissed , then the case continues to trial -- which seems like the opposite of a final order, since nothing has been determined. However, a judge hearing a summary judgment motion has more options than just granting or dismissing it. Rule 20.04(4) has been interpreted to mean that a judg...