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JR - SOR - Reasonableness - 'Line-by-line Treasure Hunt'. Sayers Foods Ltd. v. Gay Company Ltd.
In Sayers Foods Ltd. v. Gay Company Ltd. (Ont Div Ct, 2026) the Ontario Divisional Court dismissed a statutory JR, this brought against an adjudicator's order for "the Applicant to pay $685,574.91, plus interest .... pursuant to the prompt payment regime in the Construction Act" [under Part II.1 - Construction Dispute Interim Adjudication].
Here the court holds that reasonableness review is 'not a treasure hunt for errors':[73] Sayers also argues this point as a question of procedural fairness. The Adjudicator precluded cross examinations and then relied on the absence of cross examinations as a reason to decline making a finding that reliance on the impugned Statutory Declarations was dishonest. We accept that the Adjudicator’s reasons on this point are less than satisfactory. However, judicial review is not a “treasure hunt for error” (Vavilov, para. 102; Taccone v. Registrar, Funeral, Burial, and Cremation Services Act, 2002, 2025 ONSC 6879, para. 67). This was a subsidiary point in a case that should have been focused on Sayers’ primary objection: its delay claim. In our view, it is clear on the record that everyone was aware that subcontractors were not all being paid after Sayers stopped paying Gay Co., and that the Adjudicator reasonably did not see this as an arguable basis for Sayers to defend the claims for payment. Thus, even if it was thought that it was procedurally unfair to decide this point on the basis of an absence of cross examinations that had not been permitted, we would conclude that the unfairness did not affect the result. . Jagadeesh v. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce
In Jagadeesh v. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (Fed CA, 2024) the Federal Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal from a JR of a Canadian Human Rights Commission's dismissal of the appellant's complaint.
The court considers Vavilov doctrine regarding JR 'reasonableness', here the "line-by-line treasure hunt for error" examination caution:[96] The Supreme Court of Canada tells us that reviewing a decision under the reasonableness standard of review does not involve a "“line-by-line treasure hunt for error”": Vavilov, above at para. 102. We are also instructed not to assess the reasons of administrative bodies such as the Canadian Human Rights Commission against the standard of perfection: Vavilov, above at para. 91.
[97] Reasons for a decision are, rather, to be "“read holistically and contextually”", in light of the record before the reviewing court, "“with due sensitivity to the administrative regime in which they were given”": Vavilov, above at paras. 97 and 103. A reviewing court must be able to trace the decision maker’s reasoning without encountering any fatal flaws in its overarching logic. The Court must, moreover, be satisfied that there is a line of analysis contained in the reasons that could reasonably lead the decision maker from the evidence before it to its conclusion: Vavilov, above at para. 102.
[98] It is not for the Federal Court (or this Court on appeal) to ask whether there was sufficient evidence before the Commission to warrant the referral of a complaint to the Tribunal for inquiry. This would be to ask whether the Commission was correct in its assessment of the evidence – applying correctness review rather than reasonableness review: Ennis, above at para. 50.
[99] In assessing the reasonableness of a Commission decision to dismiss a human rights complaint, our job is, rather, to ask ourselves whether the Commission’s decision was one that it reasonably could have made, based on the record before it: Ennis, above at para. 53.
[100] As noted earlier, in determining whether the Commission’s decision to dismiss Mr. Jagadeesh’s human rights complaint was reasonable, we cannot just look at the decision rendered by the Commissioners in isolation, but must also have regard to the reasoning contained in the investigation report.
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