James Klein

The defendants moved to discharge a Certificate of Pending Litigation (CPL) obtained by the plaintiffs without notice.

The dispute involved a family hardware business, with the plaintiff son claiming his late father promised him the business and a 50% interest in the land.

The court found that the plaintiffs egregiously breached their duty under Rule 39.01(6) to make full and fair disclosure of all material facts when obtaining the ex parte order.

The plaintiffs omitted key facts about negotiations, the plaintiff's departure to start a competing business, and relied on inadmissible double hearsay regarding a purported sale of the property.

The court set aside the CPL and declined to maintain it under the Dhunna factors, concluding this was primarily a damages case.

Costs of $69,000 were awarded to the defendants.

The plaintiffs, Tarpin Lumber Incorporated and Tarpin Truss Inc., brought an undefended motion to consolidate eleven Superior Court actions and for summary judgment against the defendants, Kaveh Tabibi and Sara Meshgi.

The defendants, a former employee and his wife, had absconded after misappropriating over a million dollars from the plaintiffs through forged contracts and discounted cash sales.

The defendants were self-represented, did not file responding materials, and did not appear at the motion.

The court found no genuine issues requiring a trial, granted the consolidation and summary judgment, awarding the plaintiffs $827,394.97 for losses and $238,270.30 in substantial indemnity costs.

Following an earlier endorsement in a commercial dispute, the court issued a corrigendum to correct two matters raised by counsel.

First, the formal endorsement had omitted the judge’s decision striking a specific paragraph of the applicants’ amended amended application, which had previously been recorded only in a handwritten endorsement.

Second, the reasons incorrectly stated that a newly constituted board had approved the sale of a 10% share in a corporation to a respondent, when in fact the scheduled board meeting had not proceeded because the application had already been commenced.

The court clarified both issues and amended the reasons accordingly.

The applicants brought an oppression application regarding a family investment company, Naim Investments Limited.

They alleged that the proposed sale of a 10% shareholding by an estate to a third party, Dr. Low, was a disguised sale to a rival family branch that would breach an unwritten control agreement and a written ownership restriction agreement.

The court found no evidence of a control agreement, determined that Dr. Low was an arm's length purchaser, and concluded that the election of a new board to approve the sale was a proper exercise of corporate governance to resolve a deadlock.

The application was dismissed with costs.