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Appeals - Court of Appeal - Five or More-Judge Panels. Dufault v. Ignace (Township)
In Dufault v. Ignace (Township) (Ont CA, 2024) the Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed a municipality's wrongful dismissal appeal, here where the appellant sought a five-judge panel to avoid horizontal stare decisis:[8] Pursuant to the court’s Practice Direction Concerning Civil Appeals, the appellant requested that the court convene a five-judge panel to reconsider Waksdale. The Associate Chief Justice denied the request to convene a five-judge panel.
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[24] As a three-judge panel, we are precluded from reconsidering the holding in Waksdale. Following the holding in Waksdale, because the “for cause” termination clause in the employment contract is void as contrary to the ESA minimum standards, all termination provisions in the contract are invalid: Waksdale, at paras. 9-14; Rahman, at para. 30. Although the termination of the respondent was without cause, whether or not the “without cause” termination provision is itself contrary to the ESA minimum standards is irrelevant. Both termination clauses are invalid and unenforceable. . Paul’s Transport Inc. v. Immediate Logistics Limited
In Paul’s Transport Inc. v. Immediate Logistics Limited (Ont CA, 2022) the Court of Appeal heard an appeal with five judges where the validity of a precedent was being challenged. Under CJA 7(1) the Court of Appeal can sit as "not fewer than three judges sitting together, and always by an uneven number of judges". The court normally sits as three but there are no Rules (in the RCP) respecting when more than three are required:[43] Before the appeal was scheduled to be heard, the appellants successfully asked that a five-judge panel be struck so that the court hearing the appeal could reconsider Umlauf. The appellants made their Umlauf arguments as part of their submission that the Motion Judge erred by failing to apply the correct legal test when determining whether to set aside the October 2020 Default Judgment. Accordingly, the Umlauf arguments are addressed on Issue #2, below.
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