Crawford Glendron Smith

The plaintiffs, former major junior hockey players, brought a proposed class action against the Canadian Hockey League, its three member leagues, and 60 individual teams, alleging systemic negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, and vicarious liability for widespread hazing, bullying, and abuse.

The out-of-province defendants brought a motion challenging the court's jurisdiction, which was dismissed as the court found they carried on business in Ontario.

The defendants also brought a Ragoonanan motion, which was granted because the representative plaintiffs only had personal causes of action against five of the 60 teams.

The court dismissed the certification motion, finding that the claims failed the cause of action, common issues, preferable procedure, and representative plaintiff criteria, primarily because there was no basis for collective liability among the independent teams.

However, the court utilized sections 7, 12, and 25 of the Class Proceedings Act to permit the action to continue as individual joinder actions, ordering the plaintiffs to prepare an Individual Issues Protocol.

This case conference addressed the scheduling of multiple motions following a previous order for a re-hearing of a certification motion.

Counsel for both the plaintiff and defendants sought to schedule additional motions concurrently, including the plaintiff's motion to add representative plaintiffs, the defendants' summary judgment motion against the representative plaintiff, and the defendants' limitations motion regarding the tolling of the limitation period.

Despite a prior order only addressing the certification re-hearing, the court exercised its discretion to hear all four motions together over a three-day period, citing judicial economy due to substantial overlap in issues and counsel's agreement.

This endorsement addresses two motions for leave to appeal before the Divisional Court.

The Plaintiffs' motion for leave to appeal a "set aside" order was dismissed with costs awarded to the Defendants.

Concurrently, the Defendants' motion for leave to appeal earlier certification decisions was dismissed without costs, having become moot.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario issued an endorsement regarding a request to vary a trial costs award.

Following a successful appeal and cross-appeal by the Respondents (plaintiffs/defendants by counterclaim), they sought to vary the trial costs award, arguing entitlement to a higher scale due to beating a Rule 49 settlement offer.

The Appellants (defendants/plaintiffs by counterclaim) opposed this request.

The Court declined to vary its decision, noting that the Respondents had not appealed or sought leave to appeal the trial costs, nor had they raised the issue in their notices of cross-appeal or in their submissions on costs.

The respondents were successful in resisting appeals by the Varma/Madra Appellants and the Palihapitiya Appellants, and succeeded on their cross-appeal.

They sought costs on a substantial indemnity basis.

The Court of Appeal found no justification for a higher scale and awarded partial indemnity costs fixed at $300,000, payable equally by the two groups of appellants.

The Court of Appeal dismissed appeals by two groups of appellants (Varma/Madra and Palihapitiya) and allowed a cross-appeal by the respondents.

The case involved corporate malfeasance, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, knowing assistance, and conspiracy related to the establishment of a competing fund (Annex Fund) and the undervalued sale of a technology company (Xtreme Labs), including the concealment of an equity interest in Hatch Labs (Tinder).

The trial judge's findings of liability for damages and disgorgement were largely upheld, and the disgorgement amount was increased on cross-appeal to serve a stronger deterrent purpose.

The court affirmed that directors of a corporate general partner can owe fiduciary duties directly to a limited partnership.

The applicants purchased a Finnish mining company from the respondents under a share purchase agreement containing tax indemnities.

Post-closing, the Finnish tax authority reassessed the company's pre-closing tax years, disallowing deductions and effectively eliminating tax loss carry forwards that the applicants had intended to use in post-closing years.

The applicants sought indemnification for the reassessed taxes and the resulting increased tax burden in post-closing years.

The Superior Court of Justice held that the reassessment breached the respondents' unqualified warranty that there were no grounds for reassessment.

The court further held that the increased taxes in post-closing years were a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the reassessment and fell within the scope of the indemnities.

The respondents were ordered to pay the amounts already collected by the tax authority, with the remainder to be determined after the conclusion of Finnish tax appeals.

The plaintiff brought a motion to add three additional representative plaintiffs during a certification hearing for a class action regarding COVID-19 business interruption insurance claims.

The court found that the original plaintiff, Nordik Windows Inc., had an arguable cause of action and was a suitable representative plaintiff.

The court also found that the three proposed additional plaintiffs—Hangar9 Studios Inc., Cash and Carry Inc., and Real Food for Real Kids Inc.—had viable causes of action and met the requirements under s. 5(1)(e) of the Class Proceedings Act.

The class action was fully certified with all four as representative plaintiffs.

The plaintiffs brought motions to certify three proposed class actions against Aviva Insurance for the blanket denial of coverage for COVID-19-related business loss claims.

The claims focused on 'restricted access' and 'negative publicity' coverage provisions in Aviva's standard-form policies.

The court found that the requirements for certification under the Class Proceedings Act were met, noting the commonality of the standard-form policies and the identical denial letters.

The two Lerners Actions were certified, and the Nordik Action was conditionally certified pending a motion regarding the representative plaintiff.

The defendant insurers brought a motion for further and better affidavits of documents from the plaintiff insureds in a coverage dispute under a builders' risk insurance policy.

The dispute arose from a 15-month delay in completing a light rail transit project, which the plaintiffs attributed to a sinkhole event.

The defendants sought production of subcontractor change orders, native schedules, and delay-related correspondence to explore other potential causes of the delay.

The court dismissed the request for change orders and schedules as premature and insufficiently substantiated, but granted the request for certain delay-related correspondence to assist in identifying other subcontractors who may have caused delays.

The appellant, Enbridge Gas Inc., appealed a decision of the Ontario Energy Board setting April 1, 2019, as the effective date for a natural gas rate increase, arguing the date should have been January 1, 2019.

The appellant contended the OEB failed to ensure rates were just and reasonable at all times and relied on irrelevant considerations, such as the timing of the application.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding the OEB made no error of law and properly exercised its broad discretion to set just and reasonable rates by considering the timing of the application and the impact of retroactive rate changes on consumers.

This addendum to a prior summary judgment resolves a dispute over the precise amount outstanding under a settlement agreement, which was a condition for granting relief from forfeiture to the defendants.

The court determined the defendants were liable for $12,000 in default administration fees for a specific period (July, August, September 2018) and $108,624.53 in legal fees incurred before November 2018, totaling $120,624.53.

The court rejected the plaintiff's claim for interest on default administration fees and for default administration fees accruing after October 2018 due to the plaintiff's own intransigence in providing an accounting.

A deadline of 30 days was set for payment, failing which the relief from forfeiture would be null and void.

The plaintiffs, a group of mortgage lenders, brought a motion for summary judgment seeking full arrears at a 25% annual interest rate and default administration fees after the defendants breached a settlement agreement.

The settlement had reduced the interest rate, but the defendants' opposition to a property sale approval motion triggered a clause voiding the release.

The defendants sought relief from forfeiture or argued the rates violated the federal Interest Act.

The court granted relief from forfeiture, finding the breach caused minimal prejudice to the lenders compared to the substantial forfeiture sought, and ordered an accounting of any remaining settlement amounts.

The court also found the 25% interest rate and default fees were not unenforceable under the Interest Act due to prior Supreme Court and Court of Appeal rulings on time-triggered rate increases and consensual resolutions.

The plaintiffs, purchasers of pre-construction homes, commenced an action against the defendant developers claiming rescission of their agreements of purchase and sale or damages, alleging undue influence and unconscionability.

The defendants brought a motion to stay the action pursuant to s. 7(1) of the Arbitration Act, 1991, relying on an arbitration clause in the agreements.

The plaintiffs argued the arbitration agreement itself was invalid as unconscionable and obtained by undue influence.

The court applied the four-part test for unconscionability and the test for undue influence, finding that the arbitration agreement was neither unconscionable nor obtained by undue influence.

The court granted the defendants' motion and stayed the action in favour of arbitration.

The plaintiff, Akelius Canada Ltd., sought a world-wide Mareva injunction against the defendants, 2436196 Ontario Inc. and B’Nai Fishel Corporation, to protect its ability to recover damages arising from an aborted sale of eight apartment buildings.

The plaintiff claimed $45,000,000 in its Statement of Claim, but sought an injunction for $56,564,318 based on the increased value of the properties.

The court applied the five principles for Mareva injunctions from Chitel et al v. Rothbart et al, finding that the plaintiff established a strong prima facie case and a risk of asset removal given the defendants' sale of the properties and refusal to disclose the location of proceeds.

However, the court rejected the plaintiff's requested injunction amount, noting that the Statement of Claim did not include a claim for post-closing property value increase and that the valuation was inappropriate.

The injunction was granted for $690,631.38, representing professional fees incurred, plus fixed costs of $25,000 payable by the defendants.

This is the third appeal in a class action arising from the acquisition of London Life by Great-West Life.

The class alleged that participating policy account (PAR) transactions violated the Insurance Companies Act.

The trial judge found breaches and awarded class counsel fees of $16.4 million with a first charge over the $56.43 million returned to PAR accounts, awarded $4 million in partial indemnity costs to the class, and imposed a levy in favour of the Law Foundation of Ontario.

The appellants challenged the class counsel fees, costs award, and levy.

The majority upheld all trial judge decisions, while the dissent argued that no monetary award was made to the class and therefore no charge could attach to the PAR accounts.

A utility company and rural municipality disputed cost-sharing for gas pipeline relocation necessitated by municipal drainage works.

The utility sought 35% cost contribution from the municipality under a franchise agreement, while the municipality argued the utility should bear the full cost under section 26 of the Drainage Act.

The application judge held that section 26 of the Act overrode the franchise agreement's cost-sharing provisions.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, holding that the Act does not prohibit contracting out of its cost-allocation provisions and that the franchise agreement's cost-sharing mechanism applies to drainage works undertaken by the municipality.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario considered whether a 1985 indemnity provided by the Province of Ontario to Great Lakes and Reed covered the costs of complying with a 2011 Director's Order requiring remedial work at an abandoned mercury waste disposal site near Dryden, Ontario.

The motion judge had granted summary judgment in favour of Weyerhaeuser and Resolute, finding both were entitled to indemnification.

The appellate court was divided.

The majority (Brown and Lauwers JJ.A.) held that the 1985 indemnity did cover the costs of complying with the Director's Order, but found that Resolute had no legal interest in the indemnity because Bowater had assigned the full benefit to Weyerhaeuser in 1998.

The majority remitted the issue of Weyerhaeuser's rights as assignee to the trial court.

Justice Laskin dissented, arguing the 1985 indemnity covered only third-party pollution claims, not first-party regulatory compliance costs.

The appellants appealed a Superior Court judgment finding that a contract existed between the parties requiring the contractor to bill actual costs plus a 25% markup, and that the contractor had engaged in fraudulent invoicing, overcharging, and double-charging for HST.

The Court of Appeal upheld the motion judge's findings, rejecting the appellants' argument that the work was performed on an ad hoc basis without a formal agreement.

The court found it inconceivable that a two-and-a-half-year project costing over six million dollars with architect plans and a site supervisor could have been conducted without a clear contractual arrangement.

The appeal was dismissed with costs awarded to the respondent.

The plaintiffs moved under Rule 59.06(2)(c) to enforce a prior trial judgment's prohibition against the defendants debiting defence costs from participating accounts.

The defendants had allocated 50% of legal costs to these accounts prior to the judgment without seeking leave.

The court found that the prohibition order, which enjoined the defendants from debiting "any costs or expenses incurred... in the defence of these actions" applied retrospectively to all costs, whenever incurred, and was not merely prospective.

The court rejected the defendants' functus officio argument, affirming its jurisdiction under Rule 59.06(2)(c) to carry its orders into operation.

The defendants were ordered to move for leave to charge the previously allocated legal costs.