Dana Peebles

The plaintiffs brought a motion for leave to proceed under s. 138.3 of the Ontario Securities Act, certification of a class action under s. 5(1) of the Class Proceedings Act, 1992, and default judgment against a defendant CEO of a cannabis company who failed to plead or appear despite extensive service efforts.

The defendant had been the subject of Mareva injunctions for moving assets internationally.

The court found the certification criteria were satisfied, granted leave under the OSA, and entered default judgment in the amount of $53,616,189 based on uncontroverted expert evidence of class-wide primary and secondary market damages arising from misrepresentations in public filings about the company's cannabis production facility.

The plaintiffs successfully defended a motion by the defendant to amend the certified class definition.

The plaintiffs sought partial indemnity costs of $88,296.33.

The defendant argued the amount was too high and suggested $45,000 payable in the cause.

The court found the plaintiffs' costs request slightly excessive due to unwarranted allegations of abuse of process, which unnecessarily protracted the matter.

The court reduced the requested amount by approximately 20% and awarded the plaintiffs $65,000 in costs, payable within 30 days.

The plaintiff in a securities class action brought a refusals motion seeking production of a Special Committee report, three due diligence legal opinions, and answers to questions about missing marijuana inventory.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that the Special Committee report and the legal opinions were protected by solicitor-client and litigation privilege, and that the privilege had not been waived.

The court also held that the questions regarding the missing marijuana were irrelevant and disproportionate.

The applicant employer sought to certify a class action on consent for settlement purposes regarding a long-standing dispute over pension plan indexing amendments.

The provincial pension regulator, FSRA, intervened to oppose the settlement and sought to stay the court proceedings in favour of a regulatory hearing before the Financial Services Tribunal.

The court granted FSRA leave to intervene but dismissed the stay motion, finding it had jurisdiction to adjudicate the pension dispute and that a class proceeding was the preferable procedure to achieve finality for all known and unknown plan members.

The action was certified as a class proceeding.

The plaintiff brought an omnibus motion to implement a Court of Appeal judgment in favour of a class of over 35,000 retirees regarding pension indexation.

The court approved the implementation methodology, which provides an estimated $103 million present value recovery to the class.

The court also approved class counsel fees of $10 million, a $15,000 honorarium for the representative plaintiff, and the Class Proceedings Fund levy.

Finally, relying on section 12 of the Class Proceedings Act, the court eliminated the right of class members to opt out, finding that the declaratory nature of the judgment and the 100% recovery made an opt-out right unnecessary and potentially unjust.

In a class proceeding against the Bank of Montreal, class counsel brought a motion for approval of their fees and an honourarium for the representative plaintiffs.

The court approved a $5,000 honourarium, finding the representative plaintiffs meaningfully contributed to access to justice and assumed active roles without financial risk.

The court also approved class counsel's fees at 25% of the settlement funds, totaling over $3.6 million plus disbursements, noting the 2.6 multiplier was appropriate given the significant risks assumed by counsel.

The plaintiffs brought a motion to approve a class action settlement arising from data breaches at BMO and CIBC's Simplii Financial, which affected over 120,000 clients.

The hackers accessed personal information and demanded ransom payments.

The proposed settlement provided for a total payment of approximately $23 million, distributed among class members based on the type of information compromised and time spent addressing the breach.

The court applied the Mancinelli factors and found the settlement to be fair, reasonable, and in the best interests of the class, noting the litigation risks associated with the tort of intrusion upon seclusion for third-party hacker intrusions.

Following the dismissal of the plaintiff's class action on summary judgment, the parties made written submissions on costs.

The defendants sought full or substantial indemnity costs, while the Class Proceedings Fund argued for a 30% reduction on the basis that the litigation was brought in the public interest.

The court rejected both arguments, finding that the defendants' discounted fee arrangement and the breach of trust pleading did not justify an elevated costs scale, and that the pension calculation dispute was a private financial matter rather than public interest litigation.

The court exercised its discretion to award the defendants partial indemnity costs fixed at $200,000 for fees plus disbursements.

The court issued a supplementary endorsement to correct two points from its previous reasons for judgment granting certification and summary judgment dismissing the action.

On consent of the parties, the court revised the class definition regarding the defined benefit indexation payment increase from the pension plan.

The court also clarified that only the employer, and not the other defendants, owed a fiduciary duty to the plaintiff in the administration of the plan.

The plaintiff, a pensioner, brought a proposed class action alleging that the employer miscalculated the 2017 cost of living increase for pension payments, negatively affecting all subsequent years.

The plaintiff sought certification of the class proceeding and summary judgment for breach of contract, breach of trust, and breach of fiduciary duty.

The court certified the action as a class proceeding, finding it met all criteria under the Class Proceedings Act.

However, on the merits, the court granted summary judgment in favour of the defendants, concluding that the employer's interpretation of the pension plan's rounding provisions was correct and no breach of duty occurred.

The plaintiff in a proposed class action moved to introduce Pension Information Committee Reports from 1998 to the present as late-filed evidence, after cross-examinations had been completed.

The defendants objected but suggested that if the reports were admitted, the annual pension statements for the same years should also be admitted.

The court applied the test for late-filed evidence, finding the documents relevant, non-prejudicial as they were the defendants' own records, and reasonably omitted initially.

The court granted the motion, admitting both the reports and the annual statements in the interests of justice.

Following dismissal of a proposed securities class action leave motion under s. 138.8 of the Securities Act and certification under the Class Proceedings Act, the court determined the appropriate costs award.

The successful defendants sought nearly $900,000 based on partial recovery of actual legal fees, while the plaintiff argued for a substantially reduced award grounded in access-to-justice concerns.

The court held that the costs protocol developed for certification motions does not apply to leave motions, which function as a robust merits-based screening mechanism and often involve extensive evidentiary records.

Applying the hourly rate grid and Rule 57.01 factors, the court reduced certain disbursements but rejected the plaintiff’s lower estimate.

The court fixed all-inclusive costs at $500,000 payable to the defendants.

The representative plaintiff brought a motion for certification for settlement purposes and approval of a class action settlement concerning shipping charges paid by consumers returning defective video game controllers under warranty.

The settlement provided $20 reimbursement to approximately 400 customers and honoraria to the representative plaintiffs.

The court approved the settlement as fair and reasonable under the Class Proceedings Act, 1992.

However, the court strongly criticized class counsel’s fee arrangement, which lacked a written retainer or contingency agreement and relied solely on recovering legal fees from the defendant through settlement.

Applying the statutory requirement that legal fees be fair and reasonable and proportionate to the results achieved, the court reduced the requested fees and awarded $30,000.

The plaintiff sought leave to commence a secondary market misrepresentation class action under the Securities Act and to certify the action under the Class Proceedings Act.

The claim alleged that the defendant mining company's public disclosures regarding mineral production and grade levels were misrepresentations, which were later corrected by anonymous internet postings by short-sellers, causing a significant drop in share price.

The court dismissed the motion for leave, finding that the plaintiff's expert evidence failed to controvert the defendant's expert explanation of the discrepancies in the production numbers.

Consequently, the court also dismissed the motion for certification, as the common law claims rested on the same evidentiary foundation and were destined to fail.

The plaintiff sought leave under s. 138.8 of the Securities Act and certification under the Class Proceedings Act to bring a class action against a mining company for secondary market misrepresentation.

The plaintiff alleged that the company's public disclosures regarding mineral production and grade levels were false, as purportedly revealed by a subsequent technical report and anonymous short-seller internet postings.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that the plaintiff failed to show a reasonable possibility of success at trial because the defendants' uncontroverted expert evidence explained that the discrepancies between the reports were due to different reporting parameters, not misrepresentations.