Jennifer O’Dell

The appellants appealed the dismissal of their motion to amend their statement of claim to advance personal claims for damages and increase the prayer for relief, stemming from an explosion in an apartment building they previously owned through a numbered company.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, upholding the motion judge's decision.

The court found the motion to amend was brought too late, would cause presumed non-compensable prejudice to the defendants by materially altering the factual framework and requiring new evidence, and that the proposed personal claims by shareholders lacked a proper legal foundation as they did not demonstrate a personal cause of action separate from the company's claims.

The defendants brought a motion to dismiss the action by the minor plaintiffs due to the litigation guardian's failure to appoint new counsel, as required by a previous court order and the Rules of Civil Procedure.

The litigation guardian, who was self-represented for his personal claim, had not retained a lawyer for the minor plaintiffs despite over a year passing since the previous lawyers were removed from the record.

The court found insufficient evidence of diligent efforts to find counsel and emphasized the mandatory requirement for a litigation guardian to be represented by a lawyer.

The motion was granted, dismissing the minor plaintiffs' claims.

The appellants, plaintiffs in the underlying action, brought a motion before a single judge of the Court of Appeal seeking an order to compel the Regional Senior Judge to set an expedited four-week trial date.

This motion followed a previous Court of Appeal order that had set aside a partial summary judgment and directed the action to be restored to the trial list on an expedited basis.

The appellants argued that the action had not been restored as ordered.

The motion judge, assuming jurisdiction without deciding the *functus officio* argument, dismissed the motion.

The judge found that the previous order had not been breached and emphasized the inappropriateness of interfering with the trial judge's ongoing case management, who was actively preparing the case for trial.