Caroline Garrod

The Court dismissed the appeal and upheld the order for a new Tax Court hearing before a different judge after multiple violations of official language rights of witnesses and counsel, and the related interpretation right of the unilingual party.

A Paraguayan pension fund sued over a multi-year fraudulent investment scheme involving shell corporations, forged and misleading investment materials, secret kickbacks to insiders, and concealment of the true nature of several Canadian investments.

The court found that the moving parties’ funds were diverted through Genesis, First Canadian, Union, and Columbus Note structures by deliberate fraudulent misrepresentations, breaches of fiduciary duty, knowing assistance, and knowing receipt.

The court imposed liability for over $20.8 million in damages against the principal fraud actors, declared broad constructive trust and tracing remedies, and awarded punitive damages against the principal individual wrongdoers.

Additional liability was imposed against parties involved in the Columbus Notes transactions, and full indemnity costs were awarded to the plaintiff, with substantial indemnity costs on Union Securities’ cross-claim.

Following a motion where the defendants successfully vacated a certificate of pending litigation, the defendants sought costs of $73,579.49 payable forthwith.

The plaintiff argued that costs should be in the cause and in a lower amount due to the public interest nature of the proposed class action.

The court held that while the defendants were successful, the plaintiff's initial pursuit of the remedies was not unreasonable, and the defendants had delayed in bringing their motion.

The court exercised its discretion to order costs in the cause.

In a proposed class action regarding promissory note investments, the plaintiff obtained a Norwich Order, Mareva Injunction, and a certificate of pending litigation without notice.

The moving defendants brought a motion to discharge the certificate of pending litigation and for damages.

The court found that while the initial ex parte orders were justified, the certificate of pending litigation should be discharged because the plaintiff's claim was essentially monetary and there was no close connection between the property and the alleged improper benefits.

The issue of damages for the registration of the certificate was deferred to trial.

The appellant, a debt collector, was laid off when the respondent lost its contract with Capital One.

The respondent subsequently received a $6.675 million settlement from Capital One.

The appellant brought a class action alleging the respondent breached employment contracts by failing to pay commissions on the settlement payment.

The motion judge granted summary judgment dismissing the class action.

The Court of Appeal upheld the dismissal, finding that the motion judge did not err in interpreting the Commission Agreement as requiring employees to exceed a "breakeven" financial target to earn commissions, which laid-off employees could not satisfy.

The court also found no error in the motion judge's interpretation of the Settlement Agreement and upheld the use of summary judgment as an appropriate procedure.

The Garcia Defendants brought a motion for security for costs against the plaintiff, a Paraguayan pension fund, under Rule 56.01(1)(a).

The plaintiff, ordinarily resident outside Ontario, argued it had sufficient assets in Ontario, that the defendants delayed the motion, that the defendants' conduct increased costs, and that it had a meritorious case.

The court found the plaintiff's alleged Ontario assets were not unrestricted, and the defendants' explanation for delay was unreasonable.

Considering the plaintiff's substantial assets in Paraguay, the enforceability of a judgment there, the contractual relationship between parties, the defendants' counterclaim, and the defendants' vexatious conduct and unreasonable delay, the court dismissed the motion for security for costs.

The plaintiff brought a motion under Rule 49.09 seeking an order declaring that a previous motion was settled according to a draft order.

The court found that no binding settlement agreement had been reached.

Although the parties had exchanged drafts, they had also agreed that the document needed to be "cleaned up" for final review and client sign-off.

A material change was inadvertently made by the plaintiff's counsel in the "cleaned up" draft, which the defendants' client subsequently rejected.

The court emphasized that a binding agreement requires mutual intention on all essential terms and that, in this case, the final form of the draft order had not been settled, and client consent was consistently required.

The plaintiff's motion was dismissed.

The representative plaintiff brought a class action on behalf of debt collectors who were temporarily laid off when Global Credit's largest client, Capital One, terminated its collection agreement.

Following the termination, Capital One paid Global a $5.7 million settlement.

The plaintiff claimed the class members were contractually entitled to a 15 percent commission on this settlement, arguing it was compensation for post-dated cheques returned to Capital One.

On cross-motions for summary judgment, the court dismissed the action, finding that the settlement was not compensation for the post-dated cheques and that commissions were only payable if individual monthly breakeven targets were met, which did not occur.