Clifton Yiu

The plaintiff catering company sued its former executive chef and a daycare customer after the chef resigned to work directly for the daycare, moving its meal program onsite.

The plaintiff alleged the chef misappropriated confidential information, including menus and pricing, and breached non-competition and non-solicitation clauses.

The plaintiff also alleged the defendants intentionally destroyed electronic evidence.

The Superior Court of Justice dismissed the action in its entirety.

The court found the menus and processes were not confidential, the restrictive covenants were overly broad and unenforceable, the employee was not a fiduciary, and the defendants did not engage in spoliation of evidence.

The court also gave no weight to the plaintiff's electronic evidence due to a lack of forensic preservation.

The appellant, Mario Oliveira, appealed two lower court decisions: the dismissal of his wrongful dismissal action due to a breach of the deemed undertaking rule, and a finding of contempt for non-compliance with injunctive orders concerning a confidential union member list.

The Court of Appeal upheld the dismissal of the wrongful dismissal action and the contempt finding.

However, it set aside the 89-day intermittent jail sentence for contempt, replacing it with a 14-day conditional sentence (house arrest), and reduced the contempt costs from $75,000 to $50,000.

The Peel District School Board (PDSB) brought a motion to dismiss the plaintiffs' action for delay, approximately eight years after its commencement.

The action had not progressed beyond the pleadings stage.

The court applied the test for dismissal for delay, finding the delay inordinate and inexcusable.

Despite the plaintiffs' assertion that the delay was due to their former lawyer's misconduct, they failed to provide direct evidence to support this claim or rebut the presumption of prejudice.

The court found that the delay created a substantial risk that a fair trial would not be possible, and consequently, granted the PDSB's motion, dismissing the action.