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Court of Appeal for Ontario denies leave to file 500 page factum

The Court of Appeal for Ontario has recently emphasized the requirement for concise factums on appeals. In OZ Merchandising Inc. v. Canadian...

Written “hearings” as an alternative format during the COVID-19 emergency

As summarized in our periodically-updated post regarding appellate courts’ responses to COVID-19, certain courts are using written...

Unexplained delay dooms motion to extend time to perfect appeal

The Court of Appeal for Ontario has the discretion to extend the time periods to perfect an appeal. The test is described in Sopinka and Gelowitz on...

Court of Appeal panel reconstitutes itself as Divisional Court in exceptional case

In Bernard Property Maintenance v. Taylor, 2019 ONCA 830, a panel of the Court of Appeal for Ontario reconstituted itself as a panel of the...

Supreme Court of Canada reshapes standards of review for administrative appeals

In Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov, the Supreme Court of Canada recently determined that the appellate standards of...

Court of Appeal for Ontario articulates limits on jurisdiction to ‘pull up’ an appeal

The Court of Appeal for Ontario recently released brief reasons which provide essential guidance regarding the limits of the Court’s ability to...

Supreme Court of Canada splits 4-3 on whether to proceed with moot appeal

Appellate courts will rarely exercise their jurisdiction to hear a moot criminal appeal. Such a circumstance recently arose in R. v. Poulin, 2019 SCC...

Agreement that order is final does not vest the Court of Appeal with jurisdiction

The Court of Appeal for Ontario has recently reminded practitioners that agreement that an order is final does not vest the Court with jurisdiction....

What happens when an appellate court releases reasons in error

We deal extensively with appellate practice and procedure in Sopinka and Gelowitz on the Conduct of an Appeal, 4th Edition, but occasionally novel...

Appeal from denial of leave to appeal: Limits to the “jurisdiction exception”

There is an established line of authority that no appeal lies to the Court of Appeal for Ontario from a lower court decision denying leave to appeal,...