Fiduciaries, such as trustees, attorneys, and estate trustees, are all under a legal obligation to keep proper records and accounts, in order to be able to prove that they were administering the property in their care “in an honest and prudent manner.” As recently noted by Justice Myers, fiduciaries “are accountable to the penny. The only way to hold them to account and to protect the vulnerable people under their charge is through transparency. To paraphrase Justice Brandeis, ‘Sunlight disinfects.’”

To this end, fiduciaries may be compelled to pass their accounts. When this occurs, it is incumbent on the fiduciary to provide a full and complete accounting which is properly formatted and accompanied by proper documentation, in compliance with the Rules of Civil Procedure (the “Rules”). This article explores the nature of these requirements, when imperfect accounts may suffice, and the potential consequences that may result from an imperfect accounting. While proper accounts are undoubtedly the ideal, fiduciaries are not held to a standard of perfection — rather, the standard is that of a person of ordinary care and diligence, managing their own affairs. Accordingly, the court has discretion as to how to proceed when faced with imperfect accounts.

Canadian Courts, administrative tribunal bodies, and law societies continue to move to respond to the rise in the use of generative artificial intelligence tools, like ChatGPT, in litigation. This push has been driven, in part, by an increase in the number of submitted briefs containing fictitious or 'hallucinated' AI generated legal citations.

Declaration Regimes Adopted

As 2023 was coming to a close, the Federal Court issued a Notice to the Parties and the Profession on the use of artificial intelligence in court proceedings. Consistent with several other provincial courts, the Notice required parties to inform the Court, and the other parties, if they have used artificial intelligence to create or generate new content in preparing a document that is filed with the Court. If any such content had been included in a filed document, the Notice provided that the first paragraph of the text in that document must disclose that AI had been used.

Most franchise agreements contain restrictive/non-compete covenants which require that, upon expiration or termination, the former franchisee and their principals (collectively the “franchisee”) are restricted from carrying on a similar business, for a certain time, and within a certain geographical area.

Courts are generally loath to enforce covenants against competition and will only do so where the covenant is, inter alia, reasonable. Cases dealing with the enforceability of restrictive covenants arise along a continuum, from the employment context at one end, in which there is almost no bargaining power between the parties, to the sale of a business, on the opposite end, where the parties are usually considered to be of equal bargaining power. While the general legal framework is the same, the level of scrutiny applied by appellate courts in determining whether a restrictive covenant is reasonable will be greater in the employment context than in the commercial context, due to the lesser degree of bargaining power in the employment context. As a generalization, in the franchise context, the level of scrutiny to be applied to a restrictive covenant will depend in part on whether the franchise agreement is truly a contract of adhesion (meaning that the franchisee had little ability to negotiate the agreement). Where the franchisee truly negotiated the franchise agreement, the court will likely be more inclined to apply a level of scrutiny reserved for disputes between vendor/purchaser as opposed to employee/employer.

Administrative monetary penalties (“AMPs”) are an enforcement tool for regulatory bodies to deter non-compliance. AMPs impose financial sanctions for regulatory contraventions in an efficient manner as they do not require a traditional court proceeding. Since AMPs are applied through an administrative process and do not result in a criminal record, they are viewed as administrative or civil rather than penal in nature. In some regimes, AMPs may reach the million dollar and beyond range, which raises constitutional concerns about due process and the lack of safeguards to prevent wrongful determinations of liability for contraventions.

In June 2009, Parliament enacted the Environmental Violations Administrative Monetary Penalties Act (“EVAMPA”), initiating the use of AMPs to prevent violations of environmental laws. EVAMPA provides that AMPs are enforced on an absolute liability basis as the due diligence defence and the mistake of fact defence are not available. The Act also set limits on the AMPs, with a maximum penalty for a violation by an individual being $5,000 and that of a corporation being $25,000. The regime was completed in June 2017 when the Environmental Violations Administrative Monetary Penalties Regulations (the “Regulations”) came into force. The Regulations provide the formula for calculating an AMP, including baseline penalties for different violations and aggravating factors that increase the amount of the penalty. The aggravating factors consist of a history of non-compliance, the extent of environmental harm caused, and the amount of economic gain resulting from the violation.

In short, no.

The Children’s Law Reform Act defines “contact” as “the time a child spends in the care of a person other than the child’s parents, whether or not the child is physically with the person during that time” (Section 18(1)).

In Ontario, although grandparents do not have an automatic legal right to have contact with their grandchildren, they do have the right to make an application for contact. Section 21(3) of the Children’s Law Reform Act states that “any person other than the parent of a child, including a grandparent, may apply to a court for a contact order with respect to the child”. The legislation clearly identifies grandparents as persons who may apply for a contact order from the Court.

1255870 Ontario Limited v. Metrolinxis a recent decision of the Ontario Land Tribunal with respect to the quantum of compensation payable by Metrolinx to 1255870 Ontario Limited (the "Claimant") due to the expropriation of its property, municipally known as 68-70 Parliament Street, Toronto. In this matter the Tribunal was tasked with making a determination of the highest and best use of the property and its dollar-per-square-foot buildable value.

The Tribunal also had to tackle the issues of whether the scheme for which the property was expropriated was properly screened out in accordance with Section 14(4)(b) of the Expropriations Act and whether the lease of a separated, but related, corporation at the property should warrant a deduction in the compensation payable. This article focuses on these two issues.

Toronto is a hub of people and communities from all over the world. For family lawyers that means working for clients that have their feet planted in more than one and possibly several jurisdictions. Family law disputes encompass not just international parenting disagreements but also discovery of assets and compelling evidence from witnesses.

In the past few years, Canadian Courts, administrative tribunal bodies and law societies have rather rushed to adapt to the increasing availability and widespread use of generative artificial intelligence applications such as ChatGPT. This effort to enact guidelines and rules to manage the use of these new tools was undoubtedly, at least in part, a result of the growing number of instances of lawyers in the United States relying on “hallucinated” case-law citations in their submissions.

This article provides a summary and analysis of the Court of Appeal for Ontario (“ONCA”)’s decision in Shirodkar v. Coinbase Global Inc. It discusses the implications of the court’s conclusions for civil litigators who grapple with questions of jurisdiction in their day-to-day practice, and how the court’s findings may require revisiting well-established dogmas about forum selection clauses.

As real estate lawyers practicing in Ontario, we find ourselves navigating a landscape that seems to be constantly shifting beneath our feet. A particularly pronounced trend, and one that’s increasingly demanding our attention, is the notable uptick in Power of Sale proceedings. These now form a significant, and growing, portion of the sales and refinance transactions crossing our desks.