Case information

None.

Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch). Please note that summaries are not provided to the Judges of the Court. They are placed on the Court file and website for information purposes only.

Professional discipline - Conduct unbecoming - Courts - Orders and judgments - Trial judge in open court ordering money to be held in trust for husband and for wife - Wife also to receive costs from husband - Wife’s lawyer setting off costs against amount held in trust for husband - Court ordering repayment until matter fully argued - Wife’s lawyer found guilty by Law Society Hearing Committee of conduct unbecoming a lawyer - Court of Appeal upholding finding - Whether Court of Appeal should have addressed difference between formal court order on the one hand and, on the other, reasons for judgment, fiats, directions, and endorsements - Whether in a discipline charge some element of a guilty mind on the part of a member required - Whether, after disciplinary hearing committee has decided facts of complaint, committee must conduct second and discrete analysis of whether member’s conduct amounts to conduct unbecoming a lawyer.

The trial judge in a matrimonial action directed that certain monies from the sale of the matrimonial home, which was held in trust, be paid to the wife and the Respondent husband. He also awarded certain costs to the wife, with the costs to be assessed. The husband did not appeal the decision with respect to the division of family property and repeatedly demanded his share. The Applicant initiated an application to obtain an order to retain the husband’s share of the funds as security for the wife’s costs. Her costs had not yet been assessed. Once those costs were assessed, and while the application for security was pending, the Applicant took most of the husband’s trust funds to apply against the wife’s court costs. The court, shortly afterwards, ordered the Applicant Merchant to return the husband’s funds to the trust account pending full argument of the matter. He did so. The court several months later ordered that a portion of the husband’s funds could be used to satisfy the wife’s costs award. The Law Society’s Hearing Committed fully reviewed the facts and concluded that the monies should not have been removed without either court direction or consent of the beneficiary, and that the allegation of conduct unbecoming was well-founded. The Court of Appeal upheld this decision.