Gillian B. Dingle

The plaintiffs brought a motion to approve a $125 million settlement in a class action against a major bank for secondary market misrepresentation related to subprime mortgage investments.

The plaintiffs also sought approval of class counsel fees of $37.5 million, representing a 30% contingency fee.

The court found the settlement to be fair and reasonable, noting the significant litigation risks the plaintiffs faced, including a due diligence defence and challenges to damages calculations.

The court also approved the requested counsel fees, emphasizing the substantial risk undertaken by class counsel over 14 years of litigation and the excellent result achieved for the class.

The defendants brought a motion for summary judgment to dismiss the plaintiff's claim regarding the unauthorized discharge of a mortgage held in his self-directed RRSP.

The court found that the plaintiff's claim against the third-party mortgagors was statute-barred under the Real Property Limitations Act, meaning the plaintiff suffered no recoverable loss from the defendants' actions.

Alternatively, the court found that the plaintiff had actually agreed to the discharge in 2007.

The action was dismissed, but the successful defendants were denied costs due to their failure to properly document the discharge and inform the plaintiff.

The plaintiff sought to certify a class action against a mining corporation, its executives, and its underwriters for misrepresentations in a short form prospectus related to a secondary public offering.

The corporate defendants consented to certification of the statutory misrepresentation claims.

However, the underwriters opposed certification of the common law negligent misrepresentation and negligence claims against them.

The court certified the action against the corporate defendants but dismissed the certification motion against the underwriters, finding that a class proceeding was not the preferable procedure due to the inevitability of individual trials on reliance and damages, and that the negligence claim failed to disclose a reasonable cause of action as it was subsumed by the negligent misrepresentation claim and did not establish a novel duty of care.