Colleen Mackeigan

The defendants sought costs personally against the plaintiff's counsel following a mistrial.

The mistrial was declared due to the plaintiff's counsel's failure to disclose a conflict of interest involving her husband's medical assessment company, which retained the plaintiff's expert witnesses and significantly marked up their invoices.

The court found that the counsel's conduct frustrated and interfered with the administration of justice, noting her lack of candour and failure to adhere to representations previously made to the Law Society.

The court ordered the plaintiff's counsel to personally pay the costs of the mistrial.

In a personal injury trial arising from a motor vehicle accident, the plaintiff sought leave to adduce a late-served loss of income expert report.

The court denied leave under Rule 53.08, finding no reasonable explanation for the delay and prejudice to the defendants.

During the trial, a voir dire revealed that the plaintiff's law firm had retained medical experts through an assessment company owned by the spouse of the firm's principal lawyer.

The assessment company had also significantly marked up the expert's invoice.

Finding an egregious and undisclosed conflict of interest that breached the duty of loyalty, the court declared a mistrial.

The plaintiff condominium corporation brought a motion to set aside a registrar's order dismissing its construction deficiency action for delay.

The action, which sought $5,000,000 in damages primarily related to elevator issues, was dismissed after the plaintiff inadvertently missed the set down deadline.

The court applied the test from H.B. Fuller Company v. Rogers, finding that the plaintiff adequately explained the delay, moved promptly to set aside the order, and demonstrated that the failure was inadvertent.

Crucially, the court found no significant prejudice to the defendants, as the case relied heavily on documentary evidence which had been preserved.

The motion was granted and the dismissal order was set aside.