Important Decision on Cross Appeals

The important decision of the Court of Appeal in Ontario Realty Corporation v. P. Gabriele & Sons Limited, 2009 ONCA 531 makes clear that a cross appeal may be made against a party that neither appealed nor was brought into an appeal.  It is sufficient that an appeal exists for a cross appeal to be brought.  The result would seem counterintuitive but the decision is carefully set forth and clear (and for full disclosure I lost the hearing!)

 

 

 [9]               In my view a plain reading of the rule suggests that the respondents are within their right and entitled to deliver a notice of cross-appeal.  There is nothing in the rule that requires that the subject of the cross-appeal must relate to the appeal. Nor is there any requirement that the only responding parties to the cross-appeal must be the appellants.