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Appeals - No Appeal of Unopposed Orders. Fatahi-Ghandehari v. Wilson
In Fatahi-Ghandehari v. Wilson (Ont CA, 2022) the Court of Appeal cites the general rule that appeals of unopposed orders below are not allowed:[13] On the first point, it is an important consideration that Mr. Wilson is seeking to extend the time for an appeal that this court will not ordinarily even hear. This court will not typically hear an appeal from an unopposed order because of concerns that it would be contrary to the interests of justice for an appeal to proceed in these circumstances: Lamothe v. Ellis, 2022 ONCA 789. This case falls within that general rule.
[14] The May 2021 Judgment was rendered after a trial in which Mr. Wilson did not participate because an order was made, in September 2018, denying him that participation as a consequence of the contempt finding against him. The September 2018 Order was not successfully appealed. As this court stated in Lamothe, at para. 3: “[p]articipation in an appeal after an uncontested trial has been ordered can circumvent that order, contrary to the interests of justice”. It would allow a party “to engage indirectly in issues that he was denied participation in through an order that he has not appealed”.
[15] There can be circumstances in which this court will grant an exception from its general practice of refusing to entertain an appeal from an unopposed order: see Lamothe, at para. 3; Peerenboom v. Peerenboom, 2020 ONCA 240, 446 D.L.R. (4th) 418, at para. 56. But I do not see any that are arguably present here.
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