Andreas Seibert

The plaintiff, an 81-year-old widow, brought a motion to continue and expand a Mareva injunction and obtain further Norwich orders against her deceased husband's former bookkeeper, who allegedly misappropriated funds.

The court continued the existing Mareva injunction freezing $185,000 related to the sale of a restaurant property, finding a strong prima facie case.

However, the court dismissed the request to expand the injunction to cover the sale of a farm property due to conflicting evidence.

The court also dismissed the request for further Norwich orders, noting the litigation was no longer at the pre-action stage, and ruled that much of the plaintiff's evidence, provided via a law clerk's affidavit, was inadmissible hearsay.

The plaintiff brought a motion to substitute a known roofing contractor for a 'John Doe Contractor' defendant on the basis of misnomer, to have three related fire damage actions tried together, and to assign the matter to case management.

The court dismissed the misnomer motion, finding the proposed defendant could not have reasonably known the 'litigating finger' was pointed at him since he was known to the plaintiff and the pleading described an unknown entity.

The court granted the request to try the actions together due to overlapping facts and witnesses, but declined to order case management.