E.M. Morgan

A case conference was held to manage multiple related actions.

The court noted that Commercial List matters were being traversed to the regular Civil list.

Directions were given for the filing of outstanding pleadings, setting aside defaults by consent, and establishing a mutually convenient discovery schedule with a target completion date of December 31, 2022.

The court also provided instructions for scheduling anticipated motions, including a potential Mareva injunction and a motion to join the trials.

The plaintiffs brought two defamation actions against the defendants arising from tweets and emails that characterized the plaintiffs' own tweets as homophobic and transphobic.

The defendants moved to dismiss the actions under the anti-SLAPP provisions of section 137.1 of the Courts of Justice Act.

The court found that the expressions related to matters of public interest and that, while the defamation claim had some merit, the defendants had a valid defence of fair comment given the highly politicized and hyperbolic nature of Twitter.

The actions were dismissed as strategic litigation against public participation.

The plaintiff brought a motion to enjoin unidentified defendants (John Doe and Jane Doe) from posting defamatory online reviews and to require the removal of existing reviews.

The court granted the injunction against the unidentified authors.

Additionally, the court set aside its previous injunction and Norwich Order against Google after the parties jointly submitted that Google had not been properly served by email under Rule 16.01.

A new consent order regarding Google's disclosure of the reviewers' identities was issued.

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 moving party, a hotel operator, sought a pre-claim interim injunction under Rule 37.17 to remove allegedly fake and defamatory Google reviews, as well as a Norwich Order to identify the anonymous posters.

The court found strong grounds that the reviews were fabricated and causing continuous damage to the business.

The court also considered whether email service of the motion materials to Google was adequate, given that Rule 16.01 generally requires personal service for originating processes.

The court held that while a pre-claim motion should typically require personal service to ensure procedural fairness, email service was sufficient in this case because Google publicly designates specific email addresses for legal notices and removals.

The interim injunction and Norwich Order were granted.

The applicants, six individuals with ongoing litigation against the respondent, brought an application under s. 140 of the Courts of Justice Act to declare the respondent a vexatious litigant and stay all her proceedings.

The respondent had initiated over 50 proceedings, many involving allegations of sexual assault and defamation against former romantic partners.

Despite finding that the respondent exhibited many badges of vexatious conduct, the court dismissed the application, emphasizing the importance of allowing civil claims of sexual assault to be adjudicated on their merits rather than being summarily stayed.

The appellant appealed a decision of the Consent and Capacity Board finding him incapable of consenting to treatment for a mental disorder.

At the Board hearing, the respondent provided a new disclosure package just before commencement.

The Board denied an adjournment request, prompting the appellant's counsel to withdraw.

The Board then gave the self-represented appellant only seven minutes to review over 20 pages of dense medical material.

The Superior Court of Justice held that this constituted a clear and palpable error and a denial of procedural fairness.

The Board's decision was rescinded and the matter was remitted for a new hearing.

The plaintiff litigation loan company moved for summary judgment against the defendant lawyer for outstanding loans made to his former law firm.

The loans were intended to fund client litigation, but another partner of the firm had forged client signatures and misappropriated the funds before passing away.

The defendant lawyer took no position on the motion and was currently in bankruptcy, though the stay of proceedings had been lifted.

The court granted summary judgment, finding the defendant liable for the firm's debts under the Partnerships Act despite his lack of involvement in the fraudulent acts.

A case conference was held regarding five related actions, three of which were on the Commercial List and two were regular civil matters.

Counsel agreed that the actions should be case managed together for efficiency.

The judge agreed to act as the case management judge for all five cases, which will require transferring the Commercial List actions to regular civil actions.

The plaintiffs brought a motion to certify a class action against major producers and retailers of packaged bread, as well as their parent companies, alleging a 16-year price-fixing conspiracy.

The court certified the action against the producer and retailer defendants on behalf of direct and indirect purchasers of packaged bread.

However, the court refused to certify the claims against the parent companies, finding no material facts pleaded to support their involvement.

The court also refused to certify claims on behalf of 'umbrella purchasers' (those who bought fresh bread or packaged bread from non-defendants), finding no plausible methodology to prove that the price-fixing of packaged bread caused an actionable increase in the prices of those non-competing or diverse products.

At a case conference for a certified class action claiming $1.5 billion for understated fuel consumption, both parties had brought summary judgment motions.

Given the complexity of the case, which involves nearly two dozen expert witnesses and significant technical data, the court endorsed the parties' proposal to proceed with a 4-week hybrid trial rather than a 'trial in a box' summary judgment motion.

The plaintiffs brought a motion for contempt after the defendants failed to attend examinations in aid of execution and multiple subsequent court appearances.

One defendant appeared at the motion and was ordered to attend a rescheduled examination.

The other defendant failed to appear again, and the court issued a bench warrant for his arrest, with his next appearance to consider an order of contempt.

The plaintiff's action regarding a cancelled wind power project was dismissed after a 10-year litigation.

The successful defendant sought costs on a substantial indemnity basis, relying on an offer to settle for $78,000 which the plaintiff had rejected.

The court applied Rule 49 and awarded substantial indemnity costs, but exercised its discretion to reduce the requested fees by nearly half due to the plaintiff's misfortune in dealing with the government's policy reversals.

The plaintiff was ordered to pay $300,000 in fees and $457,486.89 in disbursements.

The applicants challenged the constitutionality of amendments to the Election Finances Act that imposed a 12-month pre-writ restricted spending period for third-party political advertising.

The government had previously enacted similar amendments that were struck down under section 2(b) of the Charter, but re-enacted them using the section 33 notwithstanding clause.

The applicants argued the amendments violated the right to vote under section 3 of the Charter, which is not subject to the notwithstanding clause.

The court dismissed the application, finding that the spending limits were carefully tailored to the egalitarian model of elections and did not infringe the right to meaningful participation in the electoral process.

Following a five-week common issues trial in a medical malpractice class action, the plaintiff was entirely successful against the main defendant doctor.

The doctor had crossclaimed against several nurse defendants, but those claims were entirely unsuccessful.

The court ordered the doctor to pay the plaintiff's agreed-upon costs within 30 days, rejecting his argument to defer payment until individual trials were completed.

The court also made a Sanderson/Bullock order, requiring the doctor to pay the costs of the successful nurse defendants on a partial indemnity scale up to the date of their offers to settle, and on a substantial indemnity scale thereafter.

The plaintiff landlord brought a motion to dismiss the defendants' counterclaim, arguing it duplicated an existing application the defendants had filed at the Landlord and Tenant Board regarding an alleged bad faith eviction.

The court found that the counterclaim was an abuse of process as it arose from the same factual matrix and sought the same relief as the tribunal application.

The counterclaim was dismissed in its entirety, and costs were awarded to the plaintiff.

The court addressed scheduling for a package of motions, including the defendant's motion to strike and the plaintiff's motions to add parties and seek leave to plead malicious prosecution.

The court determined that the two hours booked were insufficient and that the motions needed to be sequenced, with pleadings finalized before the motion to strike could be heard.

The plaintiff's motion to lift a publication ban from related criminal proceedings was directed to the criminal court judge who issued it.

The remaining motions were adjourned and scheduled for future dates.

The applicant school board sought an order requiring the respondent insurer to defend and indemnify it in an underlying action concerning historical sexual abuse.

Neither party could locate the original insurance policy from the 1979-1980 school year.

The court held that the applicant met its burden of proof using secondary evidence, including an excess policy schedule and standard policy wordings from the era, to establish the existence and terms of the missing policy.

The application was granted.

The applicant was successful on the merits of its application and sought costs on a full indemnity basis, relying on an indemnity clause in the operating agreement.

The court held that the contractual phrase 'all costs' does not necessarily dictate the scale of costs, which remains discretionary under section 131 of the Courts of Justice Act.

The court awarded costs on a partial indemnity basis, calculating the amount using the 61% ratio presented by the respondent's own costs outline, resulting in an all-inclusive award of $311,228.77.

The court held an initial case conference and issued a timetable on consent for the plaintiff's upcoming motion for leave under Part XXIII.1 of the Securities Act and certification under section 5(1) of the Class Proceedings Act.