Brendan Y.B. Wong

The defendant brought a motion to transfer a Small Claims Court action to the Superior Court of Justice.

The plaintiffs, an osteopathic federation and its president, sued the defendant insurer for defamation after the insurer delisted their services.

The court applied the five-factor test from Farlow v. Hospital for Sick Children and found that the complexity of the issues, the need for expert evidence, the need for discovery, and the general importance of the matter favoured a transfer.

The court also noted the plaintiffs sought mandatory orders beyond the Small Claims Court's jurisdiction.

The motion to transfer was granted.

The defendant car auction company brought a Rule 21.01(1)(b) motion to dismiss a negligence claim arising from injuries caused when a stolen vehicle collided with the plaintiffs’ vehicle ten days after the theft.

The moving party argued that it was not reasonably foreseeable that a thief would negligently cause harm to third parties days after a theft, relying on appellate authority concerning foreseeability in car theft cases.

The court held that, accepting the pleaded facts as true, it was not plain and obvious that the claim was certain to fail because the pleadings alleged circumstances that could support foreseeability, including the possibility that the thief was dangerously driving while evading police.

The court also found the motion premature given the absence of evidentiary context typically available after discovery or trial.

However, several subparagraphs of the amended statement of claim were struck as speculative and lacking material facts.