The moving party sought to set aside two earlier Superior Court orders on the basis of a reasonable apprehension of bias, alleging that the judge who issued the orders should have recused himself due to a supervisory relationship with opposing counsel, who served as a deputy judge in the region.
The court held that it lacked jurisdiction to revisit the issue because the bias allegation had already been raised and determined in prior proceedings before the Divisional Court and in a motion for leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal.
Applying the doctrine of issue estoppel, the court found the matter could not be relitigated.
The court also refused the moving party’s request to amend pleadings where doing so would contradict an earlier order defining the issues for trial.
