The defendant moved to strike the plaintiff's statement of claim for failing to disclose a reasonable cause of action.
The plaintiff cross-moved for leave to amend its claim to include causes of action under the Trademarks Act and for intentional interference with economic relations, abandoning its initial defamation claim.
The court struck the original statement of claim due to the plaintiff's lack of standing to sue on behalf of its members.
The court also dismissed the plaintiff's motion for leave to amend, finding that the proposed amended claim failed to plead essential elements for both the Trademark Act claim (lack of pleaded intellectual property ownership) and the intentional interference claim (failure to clearly plead its own economic interests and how they were harmed).
However, the court granted the plaintiff leave to deliver a new draft amended statement of claim by a specified date, emphasizing that further attempts without proper pleading might be deemed abusive.
Costs of $25,000 were awarded to the defendant, payable before any new draft statement of claim is delivered.
