Camille Beaudoin

The plaintiffs, Michael Christopher Giamou and Loren Andrea Giamou, sought damages for a vendor take-back mortgage (VTB) against Naeem Ahmed, who counterclaimed for civil fraud and negligent misrepresentation, alleging the plaintiffs failed to disclose a foundation leak.

The court denied Ahmed’s request for an adjournment and found that the VTB was enforceable, as Ahmed admitted to its terms and failed to make any payments.

The court held that the foundation leak was a patent defect, discoverable by inspection, and that the plaintiffs had not concealed it.

Ahmed’s counterclaim was dismissed, and the plaintiffs were awarded $320,000 plus prejudgment and post-judgment interest at 18%.

The defendants brought a motion seeking an order compelling the plaintiff to post security for costs pursuant to Rule 56.01(d) of the Rules of Civil Procedure.

The plaintiff admitted it lacked immediate cash flow for security but asserted it was not impecunious and refused to disclose financial information.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that while the plaintiff might have cash flow issues, it was not satisfied that the plaintiff lacked sufficient assets to satisfy a costs award.

Furthermore, the court found that the plaintiff's claim had a good chance of success and that granting the order would be unjust, potentially preventing a bona fide claim from proceeding.

The plaintiffs, TVM Cobourg Inc. and TVM Construction Management Inc., brought a motion to compel the defendants, Peter C. Hillar and Greyfield Construction Co. Ltd., to answer outstanding undertakings and refusals from discovery.

The action concerns damages for fraudulent/negligent misrepresentation, breach of contract, and defamation related to a condominium development, with a counterclaim by the defendants for amounts owing.

The court analyzed the refusals based on relevance and proportionality under the Rules of Civil Procedure, categorizing them into Greyfield's damages/non-payment, parallel proceedings, and obligations under the Rules.

The court ordered the defendants to answer specific refusals and produce a consolidated affidavit of documents, and to clarify the remaining amount owed.

This addendum to reasons on undertakings and refusals motions addresses Delta Plus Group's claim of litigation privilege over Refusal No. 10, which arose during the examination for discovery.

The court found that Delta failed to provide firsthand evidence from the document's creator to establish that the document was created for the dominant purpose of litigation, as required for litigation privilege.

Consequently, the court ordered Delta to answer the question.

In a complex commercial dispute stemming from a Share Purchase Agreement and consulting agreements, both the plaintiffs (the Dentes and related entities) and the defendants (Delta Plus Group and its subsidiaries) brought motions to compel answers to undertakings and refusals arising from examinations for discovery.

The court addressed various issues including the relevance of financial information, the accessibility of manual journal entries, the sufficiency of particulars for damage claims, and the assertion of litigation privilege.

The court ordered some productions and dismissed others, emphasizing the principles of relevance and proportionality in discovery.

Given the mixed results, the court also ordered that each party bear their own costs and allowed for further limited examinations for discovery.

The plaintiffs brought a motion seeking a declaration that certain communications with their lawyers, which were inadvertently left on the defendants' email servers after a share purchase transaction, were subject to solicitor-client privilege.

The plaintiffs also sought leave to file a supplementary affidavit after cross-examinations.

The court granted leave to file the new affidavit.

On the privilege motion, the court found that the plaintiffs' law firm did not represent the target companies during the transaction, meaning no joint privilege passed to the purchaser.

The court also held that the plaintiffs did not waive privilege by using the company email servers, as the disclosure was inadvertent and they maintained a reasonable expectation of privacy.

The court reviewed the documents and declared which ones were privileged.

The appellants sought to overturn a summary judgment granting the respondent recovery on a $460,000 loan secured by a promissory note.

They argued the motion judge erred in applying the summary judgment test from Hryniak v. Mauldin, failing to apply the Statute of Frauds, and enforcing an oppressive interest rate.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no palpable and overriding errors in the motion judge's conclusion that there was no genuine issue requiring a trial.

The court affirmed that the promissory note was valid and enforceable, the Statute of Frauds did not apply due to existing written documentation and the parties' conduct, and the agreed-upon interest rate was valid.

The plaintiff hospital brought an action against the defendant contractor for damages resulting from an over-humidification event that damaged operating room equipment.

The plaintiff alleged the defendant failed to properly install an air handling unit by omitting a required interlock between the supply fan and humidifier.

The defendant argued the damage was caused by hospital staff manually overriding the system.

The court found the defendant liable for breach of contract due to the installation deficiency and failure to train hospital staff, awarding the plaintiff full damages of $908,345.13.

This grouped appeal concerned four applications seeking declarations that the appellant insurers had a duty to defend the respondent corporations against claims of property damage arising from condominium construction deficiencies.

The application judge found a duty to defend based on the "mere possibility" test and refused ex ante allocation of defence costs.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the insurers' appeal, affirming the application judge's findings that the "mere possibility" test applies to exclusions and that courts should not conduct a "trial within a trial" on duty to defend applications.

The court also upheld the order for pre-notification defence costs and dismissed a cross-appeal regarding the assessment of past defence costs.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario issued a costs endorsement following an appeal.

The court awarded costs to the respondents in the appeal (IT Haven Inc. and Ryan Hunt), fixed at $25,000, inclusive of disbursements and taxes.

This decision followed an appeal from an order of the Superior Court of Justice.

This appeal concerned an insurer's duty to defend where the insurer alleged material misrepresentations and breach of policy conditions by the insured.

The insurer, Certain Underwriters at Lloyd's, London, denied defence to IT Haven Inc. and Ryan Hunt against a copyright infringement lawsuit, claiming the insured misrepresented their business operations in the insurance application.

The motion judge granted the duty to defend, refusing to consider extrinsic evidence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the insurer's appeal, affirming the duty to defend.

The court applied a flexible approach, distinguishing this from a typical 'pleadings rule' case, and held that resolving the alleged misrepresentations would require determining contested factual issues central to the underlying litigation, which is inappropriate at the duty to defend stage.