Insurance: MVA Coverage
Hordo, et al. v. CAA Insurance Company, 2025 ONCA (42098)
The Applicants were involved in a MVA in 2019 and applied for benefits under their insurance policy. Following a multi-day hearing in 2022, some benefits were allowed, but others were denied, including benefits they claimed for housekeeping and home maintenance. They appealed to the Licence Appeal Tribunal. Regarding the statutory benefits, the panel found the Applicants had not purchased coverage for those benefits and not met the onus of establishing a complete inability to carry on a normal life. Their requests for other relief were denied. Their request for a reconsideration of that decision was denied by the Vice Chair of LAT. They appealed to the Divisional Court, but the appeal was denied. A motion for leave to appeal to the Ont. C.A. was dismissed. “The motion for various miscellaneous relief is dismissed. The application for leave to appeal…is dismissed with costs in accordance with the tariff of fees and disbursements set out in Schedule B of the Rules of the Supreme Court of Canada.”
Mortgages: Priorities; Post-Default Litigation
Filion v. Bélanger, et al., 2025 QCCA 1013 (42036)
Mr. Filion granted multiple loans to Mr. Bélanger over a long period of time. These amounts were intended to enable him to renovate and keep his buildings. Mr. Bélanger experienced financial difficulties; he did not succeed in completely repaying Mr. Filion. In 2011, a transaction “homologated” by the court was entered into; it provided Mr. Bélanger would pay Mr. Filion $172K to settle their dispute. That amount was secured by a mortgage on Mr. Bélanger’s buildings. In 2012, Gestion Marton inc. (“Marton”), a mortgage creditor ranking first on those same buildings, was authorized to take them in payment. It consequently retroactively became their owner, free of Mr. Filion’s mortgages. In 2014, Mr. Bélanger repurchased the buildings from Marton to sell them, the same day, to his son, Cédrick Bélanger. In 2014, an agreement was reached, and Cédrick Bélanger and Michel Bélanger jointly undertook to pay $100K in final settlement of the debt to Mr. Filion. Later that same year, Mr. Filion was informed he would never be repaid. He checked the land register and received confirmation the building was now the property of Cédrick Bélanger. In 2015, Mr. Filion made a demand to Mr. Bélanger to pay the amounts and commenced an action against the sale by Mr. Bélanger to his son, Cédrick Bélanger. The trial judge examined the five criteria set out in the jurisprudence and established: (1) the claim existed prior to the act whose validity was attacked, (2) the claim was certain, liquid and exigible, (3) the action was brought within the year after the creditor learned of the injury resulting from the act which was attacked, (4) there existed an impoverishment of the creditor by the transaction that removed from the debtor’s patrimony an asset that could have been seized and (5) there existed fraudulent intent on the part of the debtor. The Qué. C.A. was of the opinion the trial judge had committed an error in law in its assessment of the fourth criterion. Following the taking in payment of the buildings, Marton had become owner of the buildings. They were therefore no longer included in Michel Bélanger’s assets at the time of the sales to Michel Bélanger and Cédrick Bélanger. Because the sale to Cédrick Bélanger did not truly impoverish Michel Bélanger, the sale could not have caused injury to Mr. Filion. The Qué. C.A. allowed the appeal, set aside the trial judgment and dismissed the action. “The application for leave to appeal…is dismissed with costs.”