Bradley Ross Halfin

The plaintiff, Morguard Investments Limited, brought a negligence claim against the defendants, Alectra Inc. and Alectra Utilities Corporation, for damages resulting from a power outage during emergency electrical repairs.

The defendants cut power to the plaintiff's commercial premises in freezing temperatures to repair a broken electrical switch.

The power outage caused the plaintiff's hydronic heating system to freeze and burst, resulting in water damage.

The defendants moved for summary judgment to dismiss the action.

The court found that while the defendants may have owed a duty of care, the plaintiff failed to establish a breach of the standard of care.

The court determined that the plaintiff, as the building owner, was in the best position to know its heating system and should have alerted the defendants to the risk of pipes freezing in freezing conditions.

The motion was granted and the action was dismissed.

Walsh Construction Company Canada (WCC) brought a motion to compel the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) to produce approximately 1,600 documents over which TTC claimed litigation privilege.

The court applied the "dominant purpose" test for litigation privilege, conducting a contextual analysis of when litigation was reasonably contemplated and whether the documents were created primarily for litigation or for other purposes such as contractual claims review, project completion, or budget management.

The court found that while litigation was anticipated, many documents served multiple purposes, and TTC failed to establish dominant litigation purpose for a significant portion of the disputed documents.

The court ordered the production of most documents, with specific exceptions for those genuinely created for the dominant purpose of litigation or solicitor-client privilege, and provided directions for redactions.

The appellant, a contractor, challenged an international commercial arbitral award arising from a US$258 million pipeline construction project in Madagascar.

The appellant sought to set aside portions of the award on grounds of lack of jurisdiction over counterclaims, failure to exercise jurisdiction over prolongation costs, denial of procedural fairness regarding retention monies, hydro seeding costs, and costs awards, and violation of public policy regarding alleged double recovery from forfeiture of tranche payments and liquidated damages.

The application judge dismissed all claims.

On appeal, the court upheld the dismissal, finding that the tribunal had jurisdiction to hear the counterclaims, that the prolongation costs claim was addressed by the tribunal, that procedural fairness was afforded on all issues, and that the award did not violate public policy.

Following a successful summary judgment motion dismissing a collection action as statute-barred under the two‑year limitation period, the defendants sought costs of $17,047.26 on a partial indemnity basis.

The court considered the governing principles under s. 131 of the Courts of Justice Act and Rule 57.01 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, including fairness, reasonableness, and proportionality.

The judge found the claimed amount excessive given the simple nature of the statute‑bar issue and the approximately 90 hours of legal work performed.

The court also noted that the defendants’ conduct had fostered the impression that payment would eventually be made and that they had already received insurance compensation related to the underlying loss.

Costs were therefore reduced and fixed at a lower amount.

The defendants brought a motion for summary judgment dismissing a collection action as statute-barred under the Limitations Act, 2002.

The plaintiff sought recovery of approximately $62,000 for construction work performed in 2006–2007 but did not commence the action until 2012.

The plaintiff argued that promissory estoppel prevented reliance on the limitation defence and that a breach of trust claim under the Construction Lien Act was only discovered in 2011.

The court held that the claim for breach of contract was discovered by August 2008 at the latest and that there was no written acknowledgment of liability sufficient to restart the limitation period or support promissory estoppel.

The court further held that the breach of trust claim was discoverable at the same time as the breach of contract through reasonable diligence, rendering the entire action statute-barred.