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Posted Friday, December 12, 2025:
1163499 B.C. Ltd. v. Yao,
2025 BCCA 443
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2025/12/12
Court of Appeal
The appellant challenges an order setting aside a default judgment and a subsequent damages assessment made under R. 3-8(13) (the “Set Aside Order”). The appellant denies it had notice of the application to set aside the orders, argues that the judge applied the wrong legal test, and submits that application of the correct test necessitates the conclusion that the Set Aside Order was improperly made. Held: Appeal dismissed. As a preliminary matter, the Set Aside Order is one that can be appealed under s. 13(1)(a) of the Court of Appeal Act, even though no application for reconsideration was brought. Although this Court has the discretion to decline to hear the appeal until such an application has been brought and decided, in this case the circumstances weigh in favour of hearing the appeal. The appellant was properly served with the application materials; actual notice was not required. Further, the judge did not err in deciding to hear the application in the appellant’s absence. The application which resulted in the Set Aside Order was rightly decided under the Miracle Feeds test. The language and scheme of the Rules favour this interpretation, and authorities that hold otherwise are not binding. Although the judge made a palpable error on a factual point in applying the Miracle Feeds test, it was not overriding and does not warrant intervention.
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Chan v. British Columbia (Workers’ Compensation Appeal Tribunal),
2025 BCCA 452
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2025/11/28
Court of Appeal
The appellant applies to seal this Court’s files related to her appeals and for an order that no fees are payable. The respondent, Fraser Health Authority, seeks to quash portions of the appeals for lack of jurisdiction and seeks security for costs of the appeals and for costs of the orders under appeal. Held: Appellant’s applications are dismissed; respondent’s applications granted except for security for costs of the orders under appeal. The appellant seeks to appeal orders largely in the nature of procedural rulings and case management directions, which are not appealable and so portions of the appeals are quashed. The appellant did not show that court openness poses a serious risk to an important public interest and so a sealing order is not warranted in this case; a no fee order is not justified as there is no merit to her appeals. It is in the interests of justice to order posting security for costs of the appeals because the appeals lack merit, and there is a risk of non-recoverability. However, given the appellant’s lack of income and the order for security for costs of the appeals, it is not in the interests of justice to order security for costs of the orders under appeal.
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McLennan v. Chen,
2025 BCCA 448
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2025/12/12
Court of Appeal
The appellant is the former tenant of the respondent landlord. The landlord served a notice to end tenancy, stating that she intended to occupy the rental unit. The appellant maintained that the landlord had not accomplished this purpose within the time required by the Residential Tenancy Act. He applied to the Residential Tenancy Branch (RTB) for dispute resolution. An RTB arbitrator found that the appellant was entitled to a monetary order equivalent to 12 months’ rent. On judicial review, the chambers judge set aside the decision on the ground the RTB hearing was procedurally unfair. Held: Appeal allowed. The arbitrator’s decision is restored. The hearing before the arbitrator met the requirements of procedural fairness.
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Owners of Strata Plan NW 2301 v. Owners of Strata Plan NW 2364,
2025 BCCA 440
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2025/12/12
Court of Appeal
The parties are two strata corporations located side by side. Following the hearing of a petition, a judge found that the parties had entered a contract requiring them to share the costs of maintaining certain amenities used by owners in both strata corporations. The judge held that the appellant, who sought to terminate the arrangement, was required to pay its share of the costs. However, the judge declined to grant specific monetary relief, instead leaving it to the parties to determine the amounts owing and apply for more precise orders if necessary. The entered order did not include a term granting the parties liberty to apply for further orders. The appellant challenges the decision of a chambers judge to amend the entered order by adding a term granting the respondent liberty to apply in the extant proceeding for further remedial orders.
Held: Appeal dismissed. The chambers judge amended the entered order to reflect the manifest intention of the judge hearing the original petition. It is open to a judge of the Supreme Court to grant liberty to apply for further remedial orders that are consequential to the court’s determination of liability.
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P.R.C. v. C.K.C.,
2025 BCCA 441
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2025/12/12
Court of Appeal
The appellant asks that this family law appeal be reopened. He wants the Court to reconsider issues raised in the appeal based on fresh evidence. He also seeks damages for “financial abuse” and other wrongdoings that he says he has suffered since the breakdown of the parties’ marriage and because of the ensuing litigation. HELD: The request to reopen is denied without the necessity of receiving submissions from the respondent. A final order reflecting the outcome of the appeal has been entered. Consequently, this Court is functus officio. Even if there is some sort of residual discretion to reopen an appeal after an order has been entered, the appellant has not established a principled basis for doing so.
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Prince George Airport Authority Inc. v. Roy,
2025 BCCA 442
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2025/12/12
Court of Appeal
The original plaintiff in this proceeding was not a BC resident. The chambers judge allowed the original plaintiff’s application to add a BC resident as a plaintiff, who could then bring an application for certification as a class proceeding. On appeal, three defendant airport authorities submit that the judge ought to have struck out every reference to a class action in the notice of civil claim once the new plaintiff was added. They say s. 2 of the Class Proceedings Act [CPA] means only the original plaintiff can apply for certification; the original plaintiff was not a BC resident, and this defect cannot be cured by adding a BC resident as a plaintiff. Held: Appeal dismissed. The appellants’ interpretation of s. 2 of the CPA is not supported by the words of the section, the context of the legislation, nor the objectives of the legislation. The preliminary application of the respondents, opposing the relief sought on appeal because it was not in the notice of application in the court below, is also dismissed. Both parties had the opportunity to speak to this relief in the court below. It is also not necessary for the other respondents to file appearances in this Court while their jurisdictional challenge remains outstanding.
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R. v. Gallagher,
2025 BCCA 451
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2025/11/27
Court of Appeal
The appellant appeals his convictions for breaking and entering and arson at a pharmacy in Oliver, British Columbia. The only issue at trial was identification. The judge accepted the evidence of two police officers who testified as recognition witnesses and identified the accused from security video in the pharmacy. The judge also concluded he was able to identify the accused based on the video evidence. On appeal, the appellant argues the judge erred in failing to properly scrutinize the reliability of the evidence of the recognition witnesses and that the verdict was unreasonable. Held: Appeal dismissed. The judge made no error in his approach to the analysis of the officers’ recognition evidence and the video evidence. As the identification evidence directly linked the appellant to the arson, the argument that the verdict was unreasonable could not succeed.
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Posted Thursday, December 11, 2025:
0998823 B.C. Ltd. v. Douglas R. Johnson, Architect Ltd.,
2025 BCCA 449
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2025/11/26
Court of Appeal
The respondent seeks security for costs of the appeal in the amount of $10,000 and costs of the underlying Supreme Court proceeding in the amount of $35,000. Held: The appellants are ordered to post security in the amount of $10,000 for costs of the appeal and $5,000 for costs of the Supreme Court proceeding. There is a risk of non-recoverability because the appellants are engaged in a risky business and have properties that are frequently encumbered. However, the appellants are not so impecunious that requiring them to post security would deprive them of the opportunity to appeal. The weak merits of the appeal and the chambers judge’s finding that the appellants engaged in an abuse of process justify an order for security for costs of the underlying lower court proceeding. However, because costs have not yet been assessed, a modest amount of security for costs is appropriate.
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Katz v. Kosikar,
2025 BCCA 450
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2025/11/25
Court of Appeal
The appellant seeks leave to appeal orders made by two judges in Supreme Court chambers. She alleges that the first judge erred by allowing the respondents to seek an adjournment without filing an application. She alleges that the second judge erred by imposing a time limit on her oral submissions, thereby failing to accommodate her disability and status as a self-represented litigant. Held: Applications dismissed. Not every order or pronouncement made by a judge is appealable. Court orders in the nature of mid-application procedural rulings or courtroom management directions are not appealable. There is no merit to an appeal of the first judge’s order because it was a procedural ruling for the efficient resolution of the matter. There is no merit to an appeal of the second judge’s order because judges are entitled to impose time limits on a party’s submissions. Judicial directions as to time limits are part of a judge’s responsibility to manage scarce judicial resources.
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R. v. Batson,
2025 BCCA 436
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2025/12/11
Court of Appeal
The appellant challenges his conviction on a single count of sexual assault. He argues that the trial judge made multiple interrelated errors, which together amount to a miscarriage of justice. Held: Appeal allowed; the conviction is set aside, and a new trial is ordered. The trial judge’s reasons reveal multiple misapprehensions of evidence and insufficiently explain how he reconciled apparent discrepancies in ruling on the appellant’s credibility and in dismissing the defence of honest but mistaken belief in communicated consent. The combination of these errors obscures the path to conviction and frustrates appellate review. This requires setting the conviction aside under s. 686(1)(a)(iii) of the Criminal Code.
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R. v. Doe,
2025 BCCA 444
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2025/12/11
Court of Appeal
The appellant appeals convictions for offences arising from a home invasion on the basis that: (1) the judge ought to have provided him further assistance as a self-represented accused; and (2) the judge gave insufficient reasons for judgment in convicting him as a party under s. 21(2) of the Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46, for aggravated assault and use and possession of an imitation firearm.
Held: Appeal dismissed. The appellant was represented for the evidentiary portion of the trial. When the appellant became self-represented, the judge provided sufficient assistance to him within the scope of her duty to act as a neutral arbiter. The judge’s reasons, read contextually and considering the entire record and the live issues at trial, are functionally sufficient. Identity was the only live issue at trial, and the basis for the conviction under s. 21(2) is clearly grounded in the record.
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Posted Wednesday, December 10, 2025:
Fraser-Fort George (Regional District) v. Chingee,
2025 BCCA 437
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2025/12/10
Court of Appeal
The respondent, Mr. Chingee, a member of the McLeod Lake Indian Band (“MLIB”), elected to receive land in severalty under a treaty adhesion agreement between the MLIB, British Columbia, and Canada, as a result of which he was given title in fee simple with respect to a property adjacent to Summit Lake. The appellant, Regional District of Fraser-Fort George (“Regional District”), later commenced an action against Mr. Chingee, claiming that his use of the property to operate a commercial campground violated provincial and municipal land use laws. In defending the claim, Mr. Chingee asserted that the property was a treaty entitlement, and that the land use laws infringed his chosen manner of exercising treaty rights under s. 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982. The Regional District applied for summary judgment, contending that Mr. Chingee was barred from reliance on a treaty rights defence on the basis of stare decisis, issue estoppel, abuse of process, and collateral attack. The Regional District’s position was based on: (i) a prior decision of this Court holding that lands granted under the Adhesion Agreement would not be reserve land subject to Canada’s jurisdiction under s. 91(24) of the Constitution Act, 1867, and (ii) a settlement agreement and consent dismissal order in respect of the prior litigation. The chambers judge dismissed the Regional District’s application for summary judgment, essentially on the basis that Mr. Chingee’s treaty rights defence raised a triable issue that could not be summarily rejected.
Held: Appeals dismissed. The prior litigation did not definitively foreclose the possibility that the land might retain treaty right status, which continues to be a triable issue. The judge correctly applied the test for issue estoppel and made no reviewable errors in concluding that Mr. Chingee was not seeking to relitigate an issue that arose in and was resolved by the prior proceedings. Given this, there was no reviewable error in his conclusion that the treaty rights defence was not an abuse of process or collateral attack.
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Lamoureux v. Hedquist,
2025 BCCA 438
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2025/12/10
Court of Appeal
This appeal arises from a trial judgment in a family law case. The trial judge ordered that the increase in value of shares owned by the respondent in companies he operated during the course of the relationship be divided unequally. He ordered that the value be attributed 75% to the respondent, 25% to the appellant, because the respondent’s efforts in growing the business rendered it significantly unfair to divide the property equally. The trial judge also made an order regarding child and spousal support which resulted in the appellant having to repay approximately $90,000 in support she had received by interim court order. The appellant says the trial judge erred in ordering unequal division, imputing income to her, and failing to engage in a retroactivity analysis regarding the support orders.
HELD: Appeal allowed in part. The trial judge erred in grounding his analysis of significant unfairness in comparative economic contribution to the relationship. The order for unequal division of the increase in value of the respondent’s companies is set aside and an order for equal division substituted. The trial judge did not err in making the support orders retroactive or in imputing income to the appellant, and the appeal is dismissed on those issues.
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Posted Tuesday, December 9, 2025:
Christoffersen v. British Columbia (Minister of Justice),
2025 BCCA 432
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2025/12/09
Court of Appeal
This appeal is summarily dismissed pursuant to s. 21 of the Court of Appeal Act, because the claim is clearly statute-barred. Further, the chambers judge was correct to say the respondent police did not owe a private law duty of care to the appellant to meet a standard of care in the manner in which they conducted an investigation. The claim founded upon the Crown’s vicarious liability for the acts impugned in the pleadings is bound to fail for that reason as well.
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Knight v. British Columbia (Public Safety),
2025 BCCA 445
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2025/12/04
Court of Appeal
The applicant seeks leave to appeal orders emanating from a Case Planning Conference held in respect of his civil action against the respondent, the Minister of Public Safety. His notice of civil claim alleges an abuse of authority, gross negligence, unprofessional conduct, and a violation of his rights under the law. He also applies for an order that no fees be payable under R. 85(6) of the Court of Appeal Rules, B.C. Reg. 120/2022.
Held: Applications dismissed. Leave to appeal is denied principally because the grounds of appeal lack merit, constituting fine parsings and mischaracterizations of the judge’s reasons, and because the orders made are highly discretionary. The proposed appeal is of little to no significance to the practice because it is highly case-specific. Allowing this appeal to proceed would hinder the progress of the action, because the appeal would have to be heard before the trial. A Case Planning Conference is only meant to move litigation along efficiently to trial. The application that no fees be payable is also dismissed because the appeal lacks merit, it is frivolous and vexatious and is otherwise an abuse of the court’s process.
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