Brennan Maynard

The plaintiff brought a motion seeking an order requiring the defendants to respond to written requests for information pursuant to section 39 of the Construction Act.

The defendants argued that the requests were improperly served by fax and opposed costs.

The court validated the service by fax under Rule 16.08, finding the documents came to the defendants' notice, and ordered the defendants to provide the requested information and pay the plaintiff's costs of the motion.

This motion concerned the statutory jurisdiction of a construction lien master to use the enhanced powers under Rule 20.04(2.1) of the Rules of Civil Procedure when deciding a motion for summary judgment.

A master had dismissed a defendant's summary judgment motion and ruled in favour of the plaintiff, employing these enhanced powers.

The defendant sought an order refusing confirmation of the master's report.

The court held that Section 58(4) of the Construction Lien Act does not confer the powers of a judge upon a construction lien master, and therefore, masters lack jurisdiction to use the enhanced fact-finding powers explicitly limited to judges under Rule 20.04(2.1).

The defendant's motion was granted, the master's report was set aside, and the matter was returned for trial.

The appellant appealed from orders of the Superior Court of Justice dismissing its action for delay and awarding costs to the respondents.

The action, commenced in 2005 for negligent engineering work on natural gas turbines, had been dormant since 2009 following a successful appeal of a summary judgment dismissal.

The respondents brought a motion under Rule 24.01 to dismiss for delay and recover costs.

The appellant argued that Rule 48.14, which mandates automatic dismissal of actions five or more years old without trial, should have applied without costs.

The Court of Appeal upheld the dismissal and costs award, finding that Rule 24.01 and Rule 48.14 operate concurrently with no hierarchy between them, and that the court retained jurisdiction to award costs under Rule 24.01 despite Rule 48.14's silence on costs.