Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Scope of Rule 2.1.01 to summarily dismiss an appeal as frivolous, vexatious or abusive where the defects are apparent on the face of the Notice of Appeal
• Effect of a Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) consent order on appeal rights, including the requirement for leave under s. 133(a) of the Courts of Justice Act when a party seeks to challenge or revisit a consent order
• Finality of LTB review decisions and the impact of repeated, serial requests for review on the statutory 30-day appeal period under s. 210 of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006
• Whether tenants can use successive “review of review” requests to extend or circumvent the statutory deadline for appealing an LTB decision
• Treatment of tenants’ allegations about lack of voluntary and informed consent to the September 10, 2025 order, in the context of a leave-to-appeal requirement for consent orders
• Tenants’ claims of procedural unfairness and lack of Indigenous cultural accommodation (denial of a smudging ceremony) weighed against the court’s focus on abuse of process in procedure rather than merits of those allegations

Background and facts of the tenancy dispute
The dispute arises out of a residential tenancy between the landlord, Abas Rahimi, and the tenants, Randy Lafonte and Anna-Lise Preston. The matter proceeded before the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) and culminated in a consent order dated September 10, 2025. That LTB order terminated the tenancy but allowed the tenants to void the termination by paying $36,186 on or before September 25, 2025. The September 10, 2025 order is expressly described as a consent order, meaning it reflected terms agreed to by the parties and was not imposed after a fully contested hearing. The tenants later questioned whether their consent was in fact voluntary and informed, asserting that the consent order should not bind them in the usual way. They also raised issues about cultural and spiritual accommodation, alleging they were denied the ability to conduct a smudging ceremony as Indigenous persons and that this interfered with their meaningful participation in the LTB process.

Procedural history at the Landlord and Tenant Board
Following the consent order of September 10, 2025, the tenants began a series of review requests under the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006. On September 17, 2025, they filed a request to review the September 10 order under s. 219(2) of the Act. That first review request was dismissed by the LTB on October 10, 2025. Instead of appealing that October 10 review decision within the 30-day appeal period provided by s. 210 of the Residential Tenancies Act, the tenants filed further, successive requests to review the various review orders. On October 10, 2025, they requested a review of the October 10 decision; that request was dismissed by the LTB on November 12, 2025. On November 12, 2025, they filed another request to review the November 12 order; that, too, was dismissed on November 13, 2025. On November 18, 2025, they filed yet another request to review the November 13 order, which was dismissed by the LTB on November 19, 2025. In dismissing this final review request, the LTB relied on its Rules of Procedure, which state that the Board will not consider a further request to review the same order or to review the review order from the same requesting party. The November 19, 2025 order dismissing the last review request is the order the tenants purported to appeal to the Divisional Court.

Commencement of the Divisional Court appeal and Rule 2.1 notice
The tenants filed a Notice of Appeal to the Ontario Divisional Court, seeking to challenge the November 19, 2025 review order. The appeal was placed before Justice R.E. Charney of the Superior Court of Justice (Divisional Court). On December 12, 2025, the judge directed the Registrar to give notice to the tenants under Rule 2.1.01 of the Rules of Civil Procedure that the Court was considering dismissing the appeal as frivolous, vexatious, and an abuse of process. The notice, set out in detail in the reasons, explained that the underlying September 10, 2025 decision was a consent LTB order, and that s. 133(a) of the Courts of Justice Act requires leave of the court to appeal from a consent order. The notice also pointed out that the October 10, 2025 review decision appeared to be the LTB’s final decision and that the tenants did not appeal that decision within the 30-day period mandated by s. 210 of the Residential Tenancies Act. Instead, they repeatedly sought reviews of review orders, a practice that, according to prior case law cited in the notice, does not extend the statutory appeal period and may constitute an abuse of process. The judge’s preliminary assessment, as communicated in the Rule 2.1 notice, was that the appeal could not properly be taken from a consent order without leave and that, even if leave were not required, the appeal was out of time and procedurally abusive.

The tenants’ response and fairness allegations
On December 29, 2025, the tenants submitted a written response under Rule 2.1.01, arguing that their appeal was not frivolous, vexatious, or abusive. They asserted that the appeal raised serious and legitimate questions of law and procedural fairness arising from the LTB proceedings. In particular, they contended that the September 10 consent order may not have been truly voluntary or informed, suggesting that the underlying consent itself was in issue. They also argued that they had been denied the ability to perform a smudging ceremony during the LTB process, which they said interfered with their rights as Indigenous persons and prevented them from meaningfully participating. According to them, the LTB failed to accommodate their spiritual and cultural needs. On that basis, they maintained that Rule 2.1, which is designed for clear cases of vexatious or abusive litigation, was not an appropriate mechanism to dispose of their appeal where genuine, arguable issues existed.

Legal framework for Rule 2.1 and appeals from consent orders
The Court began its analysis by setting out the legal test for using Rule 2.1.01 to summarily dismiss a proceeding as frivolous, vexatious, or an abuse of process. Rule 2.1 is to be used at the very outset of a case, on the basis of written material alone, and is aimed at clear, obvious cases, not “close calls.” The question is whether the abusive nature of the proceeding is apparent on the face of the pleading. The Court acknowledged that caution is necessary; while Rule 2.1 should be applied robustly to terminate plainly vexatious proceedings, judges must also look beyond drafting deficiencies to identify whether there is a legitimate core complaint that ought not to be summarily dismissed. In that sense, the Court’s task is to determine the true nature of the complaint and whether it is, in substance, frivolous, vexatious, or abusive. Turning to the appeal rights, the Court highlighted s. 133(a) of the Courts of Justice Act, which provides that no appeal lies from an order made with the consent of the parties without leave of the court. Section 210(1) of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 separately allows appeals from LTB decisions to the Divisional Court on questions of law only, but this is subject to the overlay of s. 133(a) where the LTB decision is a consent order. The Court cited prior authorities holding that LTB consent orders cannot be appealed without leave, including decisions where courts quashed appeals because tenants had not sought leave and had attempted to re-litigate issues they had previously agreed to in consent orders. The Court also noted that even where the validity of the underlying consent is itself challenged, leave to appeal remains necessary; the jurisprudence sets a relatively high threshold for granting such leave, emphasising the importance of finality in consent-based resolutions.

Abuse of procedural requirements and multiple review requests
Applying these principles, the Court focused on the nature of the tenants’ proceeding. The key issue was not whether the tenants’ fairness and consent arguments might ultimately have merit, but whether they could circumvent the procedural rules governing appeals. The Divisional Court held that the abuse in this case lay in the tenants’ attempt to bring an appeal without first obtaining leave from a consent order and without properly addressing the expiry of the 30-day appeal period. The September 10, 2025 consent order was on its face a consent LTB order, so, under s. 133(a) of the Courts of Justice Act, an appeal required leave. No such leave had been sought. Moreover, the October 10, 2025 review decision appeared to be the final LTB decision, and the tenants did not file an appeal within 30 days of that decision. Instead, they filed repetitive requests to review the same or related orders. Case law relied upon by the Court makes clear that seeking multiple reviews of the same order does not operate to extend the statutory appeal period. It also suggests that using serial review requests as a strategy to prolong proceedings constitutes an abuse of process. The Court emphasised that parties should not be able to continually revisit consent orders they have agreed to, as this would undermine both the finality and the efficiency of the LTB system.

Treatment of the tenants’ consent and Indigenous rights arguments
The tenants’ arguments that the September 10, 2025 consent order was not truly voluntary and informed, and that they were denied the opportunity to perform a smudging ceremony, were acknowledged in the reasons but not adjudicated on the merits. In line with the authorities on s. 133(a), the Court observed that even if consent is disputed, a party must first seek leave to appeal from the consent order. The jurisprudence cited describes a structured test for granting leave when consent is challenged, including a requirement for an arguable case that, at the time the agreement was entered into, the party could not or did not truly consent, and a deferential standard to the tribunal’s findings on consent. In other words, the Divisional Court does not dispense with the leave requirement merely because the tenants say the consent was defective. Instead, those arguments belong in a properly constituted motion for leave to appeal, potentially accompanied by a motion to extend time. With respect to the Indigenous rights and smudging concerns, the decision frames them as part of the tenants’ overall fairness complaint rather than as standalone constitutional or human rights determinations. Because the Court resolved the matter on procedural and jurisdictional grounds under Rule 2.1, it did not make specific findings on whether the LTB had, in fact, failed to accommodate the tenants’ cultural and spiritual practices.

Final disposition, outcome, and monetary consequences
In its conclusion, the Divisional Court held that the tenants’ Notice of Appeal must be quashed as an abuse of process. The Court found that the appeal attempted to challenge a consent order without the necessary leave and, in substance, sought to circumvent the statutory timelines for appealing LTB decisions by relying on a chain of repetitive review requests. As a result of quashing the appeal, the statutory stay of the LTB’s eviction order was terminated, thereby allowing the landlord, Abas Rahimi, to enforce the LTB order. The Court specified that this ruling was made without prejudice to the tenants’ right to bring a motion for an extension of time to seek leave to appeal the underlying consent order and, if an extension were granted, to pursue a motion for leave to appeal. Any motion for leave to appeal from a tribunal decision must be brought in writing before a panel of the Divisional Court in accordance with Rule 62.02 and the Consolidated Practice Direction for Divisional Court Proceedings, and must be filed in Toronto. In this decision, the successful party is the landlord, Abas Rahimi, because the tenants’ appeal was quashed and the eviction order’s stay was lifted. The reasons do not award any new damages or specify any costs payable, nor do they re-order the monetary terms of the tenancy; the only figure mentioned is the $36,186 that the tenants were required to pay under the original LTB consent order to void the termination. The total amount of any monetary award, damages, or costs actually ordered in favour of the landlord in this Divisional Court decision cannot be determined from the judgment, beyond recognising that the Court’s ruling leaves the landlord in the position created by the LTB’s existing orders, with no additional quantified award specified.