Registrar, Motor Vehicle Dealers Act v. 2631273 Ontario Inc., 2026 ONSC 2734
This case arose from the LAT’s general service, which deals with licencing under various statutes. In this appeal by the registrar of the Motor Vehicle Dealers Act, the court overturned an LAT decision not to revoke the registration of two used car salespeople whose company had engaged in repeated misconduct. The LAT found that the company had falsified documents, tricked consumers into purchasing additional products, and failed to disclose structural damage on vehicles, among other dishonesty. But the tribunal said revocation of their registration was too severe, instead imposing conditions on them.
The court concluded that “the Respondents’ business was rife with dishonesty. While the Respondents did not participate in or condone the repeated dishonest conduct of their employees, neither did they manage their business to detect and prevent dishonesty.” It continued that the LAT failed to properly “consider the context in which the Respondents’ misconduct took place, including the size of the business, the nature and frequency of employee dishonesty, the roles of the Respondents in the business, the extent to which the Respondents established that they reasonably discharged their responsibilities, and any other contextual factors that bore on assessing the culpability of the Respondents for the management failures that took place.” The court sent the matter back to the LAT for a fresh hearing on remedy.