David Seed

The applicant brought a family law and oppression application against her former spouse, his business partner, and their jointly owned corporation.

The business partner brought a motion to stay the corporate claims against him in favour of arbitration pursuant to a shareholder's agreement.

The applicant brought a cross-motion for financial disclosure and interim costs to fund her oppression claim.

The court granted the stay of the corporate claims, finding they fell within the mandatory arbitration clause.

However, the court also ordered the respondents to provide the requested financial disclosure to assist the arbitration and family law proceedings, and ordered the corporation to pay $53,995 in interim costs to the applicant under s. 249(4) of the OBCA to fund her forensic accounting and legal fees.

The plaintiff manufacturer brought a summary judgment motion for $222,339.57 in unpaid invoices against the defendant, a former authorized dealer.

The defendant brought a cross-motion to compel the plaintiff to accept the return of inventory purchased in the six months prior to the termination of their relationship.

The court found that the plaintiff had effectively terminated the distributorship arrangement without notice.

To give business efficacy to the parties' arrangement, the court implied a term allowing the defendant to return untouched inventory purchased after May 1, 2018, for full credit against the outstanding invoices.

The plaintiffs obtained an ex parte Mareva injunction freezing the assets of the defendant, a former senior manager who allegedly misappropriated funds and started a competing business.

On the return of the motion, the court reviewed the evidence de novo.

The court found that the plaintiffs failed to establish a strong prima facie case of fraud, as the defendant provided reasonable explanations for the impugned credit card charges and tax defaults.

Furthermore, the defendant's decision to sell his home was made prior to being served with the claim and was for the purpose of downsizing, not dissipating assets.

The Mareva injunction was set aside.

The respondents were successful on an appeal regarding a real estate transaction and sought costs on a full indemnity basis.

The appellant argued for a significantly lower amount, citing an offer to settle and access to justice concerns.

The court rejected the appellant's arguments, finding the appeal had no merit and the appellant's actions in pursuing the litigation were abusive.

The court awarded the respondents their full requested costs of $22,441.23.

Following a motion in which the defendants were successful, the court considered competing submissions regarding costs.

The defendants sought full partial indemnity costs for the motion, while the plaintiff argued that the motion had been precipitated in part by defence counsel’s own error and requested that no costs be awarded or that the plaintiff receive costs despite losing the motion.

The court held that although the defendants were successful, their recovery should be reduced because the circumstances leading to the motion were partly attributable to defence counsel’s error.

The court rejected the plaintiff’s request for costs, finding that the summary judgment motion lacked merit.

Costs were therefore awarded to the defendants but reduced to align with the plaintiff’s counsel’s claimed fees plus full disbursements and applicable HST.

The plaintiff brought a motion for summary judgment in a wrongful dismissal action, arguing that the defendants were deemed to have admitted numerous facts due to their late response to a lengthy Request to Admit under Rule 51.03 of the Rules of Civil Procedure.

The court found that the evidentiary record contained significant unresolved factual disputes, including the length of the plaintiff’s employment, whether the defendants were successor employers under s. 9(1) of the Employment Standards Act, and the calculation of damages and mitigation.

The court held that the delayed response to the Request to Admit did not justify enforcing deemed admissions where the requested admissions concerned contested or potentially incorrect facts and where no prejudice resulted from the delay.

Exercising its discretion under Rule 51.05, the court withdrew any deemed admissions and held that the matter must proceed to trial.

The plaintiff bank brought a motion for summary judgment to recover outstanding indebtedness under a revolving demand credit facility extended to a corporate borrower.

Corporate and individual defendants had executed guarantees securing the facility.

The individual guarantors argued the debt arose from a new loan issued in 2009 and therefore fell outside their 2002 guarantees, asserting the original loan had been paid off in 2008.

The court found the evidence established the facility was never extinguished and that the 2009 agreement merely reduced the credit limit rather than creating a new loan.

Given the guarantees covered all present or future indebtedness, the guarantors remained liable and summary judgment was granted.