The Ontario Court of Appeal has upheld the dismissal of a $300,000 lawsuit brought by a developer against a Mississauga resident who publicly criticized its proposed redevelopment of Sheridan Mall and made multiple complaints to the City of Mississauga about alleged safety and regulatory issues at the property.
In a decision released on May 15, 2026, the Court of Appeal dismissed the substantive appeal by Sheridan Retail Inc., known as SRI, and confirmed that its lawsuit against Pierre Roy was properly dismissed under Ontario’s anti-SLAPP legislation. The court also upheld a $25,000 damages award in favour of Roy, finding no basis to interfere with the motion judge’s conclusion that the lawsuit had been brought for an improper purpose. However, the Court of Appeal reduced the costs award against SRI from more than $156,000 to $75,000.
The appeal arose from SRI’s plan to redevelop Sheridan Mall, an aging indoor mall in the Sherwood Forest neighbourhood of Mississauga. SRI was incorporated for that project and was a subsidiary of Dunpar Developments Inc., a large property developer. The proposed redevelopment included renovations to existing storefronts and a plan to build two 15-storey condominium towers.
Roy was an engineering student who lived in the neighbourhood and was active with the Sherwood Forest Residents Association as a “Development Liaison.” He took a strong interest in the redevelopment proposal and raised concerns about both the scale of the condominium project and the way renovation work was being carried out at the mall. His concerns included sustainability, affordable housing, safety, alleged bylaw breaches, and possible non-compliance with the Building Code Act and the Planning Act.
According to the Court of Appeal’s reasons, Roy first approached SRI with some of his concerns. Between May and December 2023, he made numerous complaints to the City of Mississauga about what he believed were regulatory and safety problems at the site. He supported some of those complaints with photographs. The complaints led to multiple visits by City inspectors, which typically resulted in remedial orders being issued against SRI. SRI complied with those orders.
Roy also participated in public consultation about the redevelopment. At an April 2023 community meeting, he raised questions with SRI’s legal counsel about the sustainability strategies planned for the project. He later spoke in opposition to aspects of the redevelopment at a City planning and development meeting.
The dispute escalated after Roy was observed inside parts of the mall. In March 2022, SRI personnel saw him inside a vacant retail space formerly occupied by Target. He raised concerns with them about the condition of the mall, including waste management and alleged unauthorized industrial use of former office space. A Dunpar representative followed up with him by email the next day.
In May 2023, Roy noticed what he believed to be significant unpermitted demolition work inside the former RSA Insurance space at the mall. He believed the work posed a fire hazard. He also noticed similar work inside an unfinished restaurant. He took photographs and submitted complaints to the City.
On May 24, 2023, SRI personnel again observed Roy inside the mall and asked him to leave. The next day, SRI issued a “Notice of Pending Legal Action and Trespass.” The notice told Roy to stop what it described as ongoing trespasses and warned that SRI would contact police if he returned. It also threatened civil litigation if Roy made any further allegedly erroneous and defamatory statements about SRI to City officials or the public. The Court of Appeal noted that the notice did not threaten civil action for trespass.
Roy later made six further complaints to the City, each accompanied by photographs. SRI alleged that he trespassed to obtain some of the photographs, despite the earlier notice. Roy denied entering off-limits areas of the mall to take the photos, although he acknowledged entering public areas of the mall a handful of times for ordinary activities such as banking. He also said some photographs were obtained online or taken by his father, while others were taken from outside the mall or from external parking lots.
At a November 27, 2023 City planning and development meeting, Roy spoke against aspects of the project. SRI’s legal representative responded by ridiculing him and stating that he had been trespassing and “rooting through garbage” at the mall. The City ultimately rejected SRI’s project. Shortly after that, on December 29, 2023, SRI started its lawsuit against Roy.
SRI claimed $300,000 in damages. Its lawsuit alleged defamation, intentional interference with economic relations, inducing breach of contract, and trespass. Roy responded by bringing a motion under section 137.1 of the Courts of Justice Act, Ontario’s anti-SLAPP provision, arguing that the lawsuit was an improper attempt to silence his public participation in the redevelopment process.
Ontario’s anti-SLAPP regime is designed to screen out lawsuits that unduly limit expression on matters of public interest. A person bringing an anti-SLAPP motion must first show that the proceeding arises from expression and that the expression relates to a matter of public interest. If that threshold is met, the plaintiff must show that the case has substantial merit, that the defendant has no valid defence, and that the harm caused by the expression is serious enough that the public interest in allowing the lawsuit to continue outweighs the public interest in protecting the expression.
Before the motion was heard, SRI abandoned its defamation claim but continued with the rest of the lawsuit. At the motion hearing, SRI argued that the case was really about trespass, not expression. It submitted that Roy’s alleged unauthorized entries into the mall were private conduct and should not be treated as public-interest expression.
Justice Renu J. Mandhane of the Superior Court rejected that argument and dismissed the action. She found that Roy’s complaints to the City and public submissions about the redevelopment were expression on matters of public interest. She also found that the alleged trespasses were inextricably linked to that expression because SRI’s own position was that Roy entered the property to gather information for his complaints.
The motion judge found that SRI had not shown substantial merit in its lawsuit. She concluded that the defamation claim had effectively been abandoned and that the economic tort claims were not properly supported by particularized evidence of loss. She also found that the trespass claim faced serious difficulties, including because the mall was open to the public and the areas Roy entered were not locked or clearly marked as off limits.
The motion judge further found that SRI had not provided meaningful evidence that it suffered harm independent of Roy’s speech. Although SRI filed evidence alleging increased security, management, consultant, insurance, and other costs, the motion judge found that those alleged losses were not sufficiently particularized. She concluded that SRI had used the lawsuit to leverage its economic power against Roy and intimidate him into withdrawing from the public land use process.
Justice Mandhane dismissed SRI’s proceeding, awarded Roy $25,000 in damages, and later ordered SRI to pay Roy $156,394.54 in full indemnity costs.
On appeal, SRI argued that the motion judge made multiple errors. It said she wrongly characterized the lawsuit as arising from expression, failed to properly analyze the trespass claim, misapplied the test for substantial merit, undervalued the harm to SRI, overvalued Roy’s expression, and improperly awarded damages and costs.
Writing for a unanimous panel, Justice David Paciocco rejected SRI’s arguments on the substantive issues. He held that the motion judge was entitled to find that the lawsuit as a whole arose from Roy’s public expression. The court emphasized that the test does not depend only on the formal legal labels attached to the claims, such as trespass or defamation. The key question is whether the expression is causally connected to the proceeding.
The Court of Appeal found strong support for the motion judge’s conclusion. The earlier trespass notice threatened civil action over Roy’s public statements and complaints, not civil action for trespass. SRI’s statement of claim prominently featured Roy’s communications. SRI itself argued that Roy entered parts of the mall to gather information for his complaints. The court also noted that SRI’s counsel had acknowledged before the motion judge that one motivation for the claim was to stop the complaints.
The court agreed that Roy’s complaints and public submissions concerned matters of public interest. They dealt with compliance with public regulatory requirements, environmental issues, social concerns, and a large proposed redevelopment. Those were issues about which some segment of the public would have a genuine interest in receiving information.
The Court of Appeal also upheld the motion judge’s conclusion that SRI failed to meet the merits-based hurdle. The court noted that the defamation claim had been abandoned, the economic tort claims were not supported by specific evidence of economic loss, and the trespass claim did not have the substantial merit required in the anti-SLAPP context.
The court accepted that a person may become a trespasser in a public mall if they enter for an unauthorized purpose. However, even if Roy had technically trespassed, the court found that SRI had not shown grounds to believe the trespasses caused real damage. Without evidence of actual harm, the trespass claim would amount to a technical claim supporting only nominal damages. That was not enough, in the circumstances, to outweigh Roy’s protected expression.
The Court of Appeal also rejected SRI’s challenge to the motion judge’s public interest analysis. It found that the motion judge was entitled to give significant weight to Roy’s expression, which related to public participation in municipal planning, public safety, environmental concerns, and regulatory compliance. SRI’s alleged harms, by contrast, were not supported by sufficient evidence and were not shown to outweigh the public interest in protecting Roy’s expression.
The court also upheld the $25,000 damages award. Under Ontario’s anti-SLAPP legislation, damages may be awarded where a proceeding was brought in bad faith or for an improper purpose. The Court of Appeal found that the motion judge did not award damages merely because the case was a SLAPP. Instead, she found that SRI used the lawsuit, including a large damages claim and aggressive litigation tactics, to intimidate Roy and discourage his public participation. The Court of Appeal held that those findings were entitled to deference.
SRI succeeded only on the issue of costs. The Court of Appeal found that the motion judge acted unfairly by deciding in advance, before receiving costs submissions, that costs would be awarded on a full indemnity basis. Although full indemnity costs are presumed for successful anti-SLAPP motions, the court said parties must still have an opportunity to make submissions before the scale of costs is decided.
The Court of Appeal granted leave to appeal the costs award, set aside the original costs order, and substituted a reduced award of $75,000, inclusive of taxes and disbursements. Justice Paciocco noted that anti-SLAPP motions are meant to provide a summary and less expensive way of preventing abusive litigation, and should not be conducted like trials that generate trial-level legal fees. The court also awarded Roy $20,000 in costs for the appeal.
Read more about defamation cases here.
Read about more real estate cases here.
