J. Cook

The defendant, Valeria Dye, brought a motion for summary judgment to dismiss the action by the plaintiffs, Augustine D’Souza and Cedric D’Souza.

The plaintiffs claimed damages for breach of contract, fiduciary duty, trust, and negligence, alleging that $86,000 was transferred to Dye's trust account and improperly released.

The court found that the facts were hazy and in dispute, raising genuine issues requiring a trial.

The motion was dismissed, with the court emphasizing a cautious approach when dealing with self-represented litigants and noting that informal evidence could be sufficient to defeat summary judgment.

This action arose from a real estate transaction oversight where the Mundenchiras inadvertently received title to both halves of a subdivided property instead of just the one they purchased.

The Mundenchiras, as plaintiffs by cross-claim, sued their lawyer, Mr. Suvendu Goswami, for negligence and sought substantial damages for business losses, property value reduction, carrying costs, and mental distress.

The court found that Mr. Goswami breached his duty of care by failing to ensure good marketable title.

However, most of the Mundenchiras' damage claims were dismissed as not reasonably foreseeable or factually unproven, particularly those related to speculative secondary transactions.

The court only awarded a refund of a $5,000 retainer paid to Mr. Goswami to rectify the title error.

The applicant, operating a restolounge, sought an interim injunction to restrain its landlord from leasing space in the same building to a proposed Mediterranean restaurant, relying on an exclusionary clause in its lease.

The applicant argued the new restaurant would operate a similar business and serve alcohol, causing a loss of business.

Applying the RJR-MacDonald test, the court found there was a serious issue to be tried but dismissed the application because the applicant failed to establish irreparable harm that could not be compensated by damages.