Ahab Abdel-Aziz

At the opening of a scheduled 7-week trial, the defendant insurer brought a motion for an adjournment due to the plaintiff's late disclosure of physical evidence and additional documents.

The plaintiff had disclosed the existence of particles and other physical evidence relevant to the cause of the equipment failure just weeks before trial.

The court found that it would be unjust to force the defendant to proceed without an opportunity to obtain expert advice and conduct further discovery on the newly disclosed evidence.

The motion for an adjournment was granted.

Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL) sought to amend its statement of claim in a long-running insurance indemnity action against Allianz Global Risks US Insurance Company (Allianz).

Allianz opposed the amendments, arguing they introduced new causes of action, were time-barred, lacked particulars, and caused prejudice due to inordinate delay and loss of evidence.

The court found that amendments related to causation theories advanced by Allianz's experts were not new causes of action, but the claim based on assignment of rights from MDS Nordion and Comstock was a new cause of action and time-barred.

The court granted leave to amend certain paragraphs, denied others, and required AECL to provide better particulars for the causation amendments to limit their scope to the theories advanced by Allianz's experts.

The Director appealed an order of the Environmental Review Tribunal awarding costs to the respondents after the Director revoked the underlying environmental orders.

The Divisional Court allowed the appeal, finding that the Tribunal lacked jurisdiction to award costs.

The Environmental Protection Act does not confer costs jurisdiction, and the Tribunal could not rely on section 17.1 of the Statutory Powers Procedure Act because it had not enacted rules regarding costs that complied with the requirements of section 17.1(2)(b).