Jacob Svirsky

HSBC Bank Canada appealed a summary judgment decision in its favour against Antonio Guido on a personal loan guarantee.

Guido, the principal of Royal Canadian Bedrock Inc., had defaulted on a loan and was bound by a personal guarantee.

Guido's principal defence was that HSBC was bound by a side agreement allegedly engineered by Bruno Campoli, who was retained as an exclusive agent for both Guido and RCB.

Guido claimed Campoli and Michael Thomas & Associates Inc. were also acting as agents for HSBC and made misrepresentations that HSBC would not enforce the guarantee.

Guido also alleged a conspiracy to extract unlawful fees.

The motion judge granted summary judgment to HSBC and dismissed Guido's counterclaim.

The Court of Appeal upheld the decision, finding no genuine issue requiring trial and no evidentiary support for Guido's allegations after five years of litigation.

This endorsement addresses the costs of an unsuccessful motion for summary judgment brought by the Plaintiffs against the Defendant David Ryan.

The Defendant sought partial indemnity costs of over $100,000.

The Plaintiffs argued for costs to be reserved to the trial judge or fixed at $25,000, asserting that much of the work done for the motion would be reusable at trial.

The court found that the Plaintiffs should have realized the case was not suitable for summary judgment and that a significant portion of the work would not be reusable.

The court awarded the Defendant $60,000 in all-inclusive costs, payable within 30 days, but reserved the issue of expert report disbursements to the trial judge, acknowledging their potential reusability.

The plaintiffs, J.M.L. Holding Corporation and Gary Muchula, sought summary judgment against their former real estate solicitor, David Ryan, alleging professional negligence.

They claimed Mr. Ryan's conduct led to the erroneous sale of a waterfront property they did not intend to sell, seeking $550,000 in damages.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that the case presented genuine issues requiring a trial, including significant credibility and reliability issues between the parties, conflicting expert opinions on the standard of care and damages, and an incomplete evidentiary record, particularly regarding the buyer's perspective and the plaintiffs' intentions for the property.

The defendant franchisor brought a motion for summary judgment on its counterclaim, seeking declaratory relief and enforcement of a personal guarantee for unpaid costs from a previous order.

The court dismissed the motion because the moving party acknowledged it was no longer seeking the damages originally pleaded in its counterclaim, and the declaratory and guarantee relief sought on the motion had never been pleaded in the counterclaim.

The court held that summary judgment could not be granted for relief that was not properly before the court in the underlying action.