Ruling notes children’s privacy is a particularly important public interest
The Ontario Superior Court granted an interim sealing order over a portion of the record, expiring before the commencement of any common issues trial in a putative class action asserting systemic wrongdoing in children’s homes operated by the defendants.
In Morrison v. Hatts Off Inc., 2025 ONSC 6992, the plaintiff served his certification record in May 2024. In October 2024, the defendants served their responding record, which included affidavits by one defendant and a proposed expert.
The plaintiff alleged that paragraph 5 of the defendant’s affidavit and exhibits A-L and LL and paragraph 34 of the proposed expert’s affidavit contained sensitive information.
The plaintiff argued that the sensitive information threatened the privacy interests of the plaintiff, of fellow residents of the defendants’ homes who delivered affidavits supporting the certification motion, of the affiants’ family members, and of individuals the affiants had named as victims of the defendants’ abuse.
According to the plaintiffs, the sensitive information covered the affiants’ personal records in the files of defendant Hatts Off Inc., which collected information as a service provider under the s. 286 of Ontario’s Child, Youth, and Family Services Act, 2017 (CYFSA). These records included:
As the primary relief, the plaintiff sought a limited sealing order to prevent including the sensitive information in the public record and to redact public materials filed by the parties concerning the certification motion to omit references to sensitive information.
As an alternative relief, the plaintiff wanted to declare the sensitive information’s public filing as a breach of s. 286 of the CYFSA and/or ss. 110 and 111 of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, 2002 (YCJA).
The defendants conceded to a strong public interest in protecting children’s privacy. While they opposed the alternative relief, they did not object to the primary relief on the conditions that:
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice deemed it appropriate to issue the interim sealing order in the form to which counsel agreed, limited to the sensitive information involved.
First, the court cited:
Second, the court ruled that the sensitive information revealed intimate and personal details about the affiants, such that publishing the information would pose a real and substantial privacy risk.
The court determined that the defendants’ proposed redactions of the youth criminal history information from the sensitive information would be insufficient to prevent the risk to the affiants’ privacy interests.
The court noted that issuing an order prohibiting any filing of the sensitive information would also be unacceptable, as such an order would prevent the defendants from relying on evidence allegedly relevant to certification.
Third, the court held that the proposed sealing order’s salutary effects were the protection of the affiants’ youth privacy interests and the enhancement of trial fairness by allowing the defendants to rely on the sensitive information at certification without breaching the affiants’ privacy.
The court noted that the sensitive information constituted a small portion (127 pages) of the defendants’ responding record (4,676 pages).
The court concluded that the salutary effects outweighed the proposed sealing order’s insignificant, sole deleterious effect, which was the infringement of the open court principle to a limited extent.
The court pointed out that the open court process sought to ensure transparency in the justice system, not to publish young individuals’ sensitive personal information or risk the exploitation of their vulnerabilities.
Lastly, the court found it unnecessary to consider the plaintiff’s alternative relief, given that it had considered an interim sealing order appropriate in the circumstances.
