John Parr Telfer

Unifund Assurance Company brought a motion to enforce a settlement agreement requiring Dieter Knoppke to pay $600,000.

Alex Krek's estate sought a continuation order and removal of an encumbrance from title.

The court granted Unifund's motion, ordering Knoppke to pay the settlement amount with 5% pre-judgment interest.

The court also granted the Krek estate's requests.

While acknowledging Knoppke's egregious conduct, the court declined to award punitive damages due to his absence and lack of instructions to counsel, opting instead to award full indemnity costs to Unifund and partial indemnity costs to the Krek estate.

Following a successful motion by the respondents declining to confirm an Assessment Officer's decision, the parties could not agree on costs.

The applicants argued costs should be in the cause as the matter was returned to a judge for determination.

The court rejected this argument, finding the respondents were presumptively entitled to costs as the successful party.

The court found the respondents' claimed costs of $30,749.59 excessive due to duplication of work by multiple timekeepers, and fixed costs at $15,000 all-inclusive.

The respondents brought a motion opposing the confirmation of an Assessment Officer's decision that reduced their legal accounts from $221,336.66 to $35,000.

The court found that the Assessment Officer failed to provide sufficient reasons for the drastic reduction, as she did not meaningfully analyze the Cohen factors or explain how she arrived at the reduced amount.

The court declined to confirm the assessment and directed that the matter be returned to the judge hearing the application.

The moving party landlord brought a motion to discharge several construction liens registered against its property, arguing it was not an 'owner' under the Construction Lien Act because the work was requested by its bankrupt tenant.

The court found that the landlord and tenant were connected through common directors, officers, and legal counsel, and the landlord had paid substantial amounts for leasehold improvements.

The court dismissed the motion, concluding there was a genuine issue requiring a trial regarding the landlord's status as an owner.

Following the dismissal of the plaintiff's motion to amend her pleadings at the outset of trial, the defendants sought costs of the motion and costs thrown away for trial preparation.

The court awarded the defendants costs of the motion on a partial indemnity basis, fixed at $7,500 inclusive of HST and disbursements, payable in any event of the cause and offset against any award payable to the plaintiff after trial.

The issue of costs thrown away was left to the trial judge.

On the first day of trial, the plaintiff sought to amend her Statement of Claim to advance a $240,000 claim for damages.

The proceeding was originally commenced as an application under the Solicitors Act to assess a solicitor's bill, which was later ordered to be treated as an action.

The court held that an order under Rule 38.10 does not retroactively convert an application into an action for all purposes, and the proposed amendment constituted a new cause of action for damages.

Because the plaintiff knew of the potential claim years prior, the amendment was statute-barred under the Limitations Act and the motion was dismissed.

Following a solicitor‑client account assessment, the court determined costs arising from the proceeding.

The client obtained significant reductions to the law firm’s accounts, approaching approximately 50% of the amounts billed, including the elimination or waiver of certain accounts and other reductions.

The court considered the parties’ Rule 49 settlement offers and litigation conduct in assessing substantial success under the framework of Rule 57 of the Rules of Civil Procedure.

Although the client was substantially successful, the court declined to award substantial indemnity costs.

Partial indemnity fees and certain disbursements were allowed, with reductions where claimed disbursements were inappropriate or related to excluded expert evidence.

The applicant, acting personally and as executor of his mother's estate, sought an assessment of his former law firm's accounts totaling over $190,000.

The core dispute was whether the law firm provided competent advice when it recommended commencing a lawsuit and an interlocutory motion against the applicant's brothers to have jointly held assets paid into the estate, primarily to leverage higher executor's compensation.

The court found that the motion was ill-advised, unlikely to succeed, and of no value to the client, as the underlying issues could have been resolved through a passing of accounts.

The court ordered the law firm to repay $73,000 in fees and disbursements related to the motion, while approving the balance of the accounts.

Following a trial in which the plaintiffs obtained declaratory relief confirming that their lot boundaries extended to the water’s edge and that a corporate defendant had no interest in a disputed strip of land, the court addressed a further dispute concerning the scope of a previously awarded costs order.

The plaintiffs sought to extend the costs award beyond the corporate defendant to several individual defendants and a non‑party.

The court found that the litigation and evidentiary record concerned only the dispute between the plaintiffs and the corporate defendant, and that no evidence or argument had been directed at the individual defendants.

Concluding that those individuals were effectively nominal parties and that the litigation was necessitated solely by the corporate defendant’s position, the court declined to impose costs against them.

The costs order was confirmed to apply only against the corporate defendant.

Following a seven‑day civil trial in which the plaintiffs obtained declaratory relief, the court was required to determine the scale and quantum of costs.

The plaintiffs argued that a pre‑trial Offer to Settle triggered Rule 49.10 of the Rules of Civil Procedure and sought partial indemnity costs to the date of the offer and substantial indemnity costs thereafter.

The court held that the offer did not clearly correspond to the judgment obtained and therefore did not justify elevated costs.

Costs were fixed on a partial indemnity basis, with the court reducing the claimed hours as excessive and applying a regional benchmark of approximately 60 percent of counsel’s actual hourly rates.

The defendant mortgagee brought a motion for summary judgment dismissing the plaintiff mortgagor’s action alleging an improvident power of sale of farm property, or alternatively for security for costs.

The plaintiff argued that the mortgagee failed to take reasonable precautions to obtain true market value and relied on outdated appraisals when selling the property, while a retrospective expert appraisal suggested a significantly higher value.

The court held that evidentiary gaps, including untested appraisal evidence and unanswered allegations regarding the conduct of the mortgagee’s solicitor, created genuine issues requiring a trial.

The court also refused security for costs, finding the moving party failed to establish any ground under Rule 56.01.

Both branches of the motion were dismissed.

Waterfront property owners sought a declaration that their subdivision lots extended to the water’s edge of the Ottawa River despite a strip of land shown between the lots and the shoreline on a 1931 registered plan.

The defendants, successors in title to the original subdividers, claimed ownership of the strip and argued the plan intentionally reserved the land.

The court found a latent ambiguity in the subdivision plan and admitted extrinsic evidence to determine the intention of the original subdividers.

After reviewing historical surveying practices, expert evidence, and surrounding circumstances, the court concluded the rectilinear boundary on the plan represented an approximation of the high-water mark and that the subdividers believed the intervening land was public.

As the Crown patent extended to the water’s edge and there was no intention to reserve the strip, the lots were held to extend to the water’s edge.