Carey O’Connor

The plaintiff brought a motion seeking production of damages documents, specifically client engagement communications, client-by-client contribution margins, and underlying documents for client sales summaries.

The defendants brought a cross-motion seeking a further affidavit of documents, answers to outstanding undertakings, and answers to questions refused on discovery.

The court granted the plaintiff's requests for client engagement communications and underlying sales summary documents, but denied the request for client-by-client contribution margins due to proportionality.

For the defendants' motion, the court ordered clarification on undertakings and answers to numerous refused discovery questions concerning employee departures, lost clients, employee benefits, redacted documents, customer reports, and profit and loss statements.

The defendants' request for a further affidavit of documents was denied based on proportionality.

Multiple tobacco manufacturer defendants sought partial indemnity costs of approximately $300,000 after withdrawing previously scheduled motions to strike the Crown’s statement of claim in a health care cost recovery action under the Tobacco Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act.

The defendants argued they were the successful parties because their motions prompted extensive amendments to the pleading and that the Crown delayed notifying them of its intention to amend.

The court held that the amendments addressed only some of the alleged deficiencies and that significant legal issues remained unresolved when the defendants chose to withdraw the motions.

As a result, success on the motions was considered divided.

Exercising discretion under s. 131 of the Courts of Justice Act, the court ordered that each side bear its own costs.

The applicant transit authority sought court approval of a negotiated settlement in a class proceeding concerning entitlement to proceeds arising from the demutualization of a life insurance company that issued group life insurance policies to employees and retirees.

The settlement provided that approximately 62% of the proceeds would be distributed to eligible employees and retirees and the remainder to the employer, with deductions for distribution and legal costs.

The court applied the established test under the Class Proceedings Act, 1992 for approving class action settlements and considered factors including fairness of allocation, litigation risk, negotiation process, notice to class members, and absence of objections.

The court concluded that the settlement was fair, reasonable, and in the best interests of the class and approved the distribution scheme and related legal and administrative fees.

Ancillary orders were granted permitting sharing of contact information for distribution purposes and sealing the final list of eligible recipients to protect personal information.