Cheryl Gerhardt-McLuckie

The plaintiffs, owners of a commercial property, sued the defendants for environmental contamination allegedly emanating from a neighbouring gas station.

Pending trial, the plaintiffs brought a motion for an order under the oppression remedy of the Business Corporations Act requiring the defendants to pay $8,000,000 into court as security, or alternatively, a Mareva injunction freezing the defendants' assets.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that the plaintiffs, as potential creditors with an unliquidated claim, did not qualify as complainants under the oppression remedy.

The court also denied the Mareva injunction, concluding there was no real risk of asset dissipation.

The plaintiffs brought a motion seeking an order under s. 248 of the Business Corporations Act requiring the defendants to pay $8 million into court as security for an environmental contamination claim.

Prior to the motion, the parties exchanged offers to settle.

While they agreed on the security amount, they disagreed on when and how the costs of the motion would be determined.

The defendants argued a settlement was reached and brought a motion to enforce it, claiming costs were a collateral issue.

The court found that costs were an essential term of the settlement offers and, because there was no unequivocal acceptance of all terms, no binding settlement was reached.

The motion to enforce the settlement was dismissed.

The plaintiffs brought a motion to strike the defendants' statement of defence, either in its entirety or specific paragraphs, alleging breaches of pleading rules, irrelevance, scandalous, frivolous, vexatious, prolix, argumentative content, and improper allegations regarding the plaintiffs' motive.

The court also addressed a preliminary issue of settlement privilege concerning a letter.

The Master ruled the letter was protected by settlement privilege and ordered its removal from the record.

While declining to strike the entire statement of defence, the Master struck specific paragraphs (3, 50, 60, 67, 68, 71) with leave to amend, finding them to be scandalous, frivolous, and vexatious due to an absence of material facts, argumentative nature, bare allegations, inflammatory attacks, or bare conclusions and opinions.