Jesse Gardner

The responding parties brought an application seeking declaratory relief regarding the moving parties' alleged failure to retain an operator for a light rail transit project.

The moving parties brought a motion to stay the application in favour of arbitration, relying on a dispute resolution clause in prior Minutes of Settlement.

The court granted the stay, applying the competence-competence principle and finding that the moving parties established an arguable case that the dispute fell within the arbitration agreement.

The court also found no undue delay by the moving parties in seeking the stay.

This is a costs endorsement from the Court of Appeal for Ontario, following an appeal where the lower court's judgment and costs order were set aside and the application remitted for rehearing.

The parties were unable to agree on the disposition of the original application costs.

The Court of Appeal determined that the fairest approach was to leave the issue of the application costs to the trier of fact on the rehearing, whether before a Superior Court judge or in an arbitral process.

Appeal costs had previously been awarded to the appellants.

This is an appeal concerning the interpretation of a complex project agreement for the Eglinton Crosstown LRT in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The application judge had found that a specific contractual provision (s. 62.1(c)) requiring a "Variation Enquiry" was triggered by an internal email from the Crown agencies to their own staff, which was never sent to the consortium.

The Court of Appeal found that the application judge made a palpable and overriding error in concluding that this internal email constituted notification to the consortium.

The appeal was allowed, the original judgment set aside, and the application remitted to the Superior Court for a rehearing to consider other arguments, including good faith and the indivisibility of the Crown, which the application judge had not addressed.

The applicants sought $430,000 in costs following a successful application regarding a construction dispute.

The respondents argued that a settlement offer they made should limit the applicants' costs to the period before the offer, and that disbursements for online legal research should not be compensable.

The court found that the respondents' non-monetary settlement offer was more favourable than the judgment obtained by the applicants, as it would have led to a faster final determination of the underlying dispute.

Consequently, the applicants' costs were limited to $92,119.92 incurred before the offer.

The court also disallowed the $4,060.18 claimed for online legal research, finding the applicants failed to prove these costs did not fall within standard office overhead.

The applicants, a consortium of construction companies building the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, sought declarations that the COVID-19 pandemic constituted an Emergency under their Project Agreement, entitling them to a Variation Enquiry for an extension of the Substantial Completion Date.

The respondents moved to stay the application, arguing the contract required all litigation to be deferred until after Substantial Completion.

The court dismissed the motion for a stay, finding it would cause irreparable harm by depriving the applicants of their contractual right to seek an extension.

The court granted the declarations, holding that the pandemic was an Emergency and that the respondents had required the applicants to implement additional or overriding procedures (social distancing), thereby triggering the Variation Enquiry process.

The plaintiff physician brought an action against the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons after it determined he did not meet the eligibility requirements to sit the internal medicine national exam based on his US residency training.

Both parties moved for summary judgment.

The court granted the College's motion and dismissed the plaintiff's action, finding no genuine issue for trial as the plaintiff failed to establish any legal duty breached by the College or any damages suffered.