Jonathan Friedman

The plaintiff brought a motion for contempt against the defendants for allegedly breaching a court order that prohibited encumbering a specific property in excess of $309,000.

The defendant Lauri Partanen admitted to being in contempt and was given an opportunity to purge his contempt by paying $216,000 into court.

The motion for contempt against the defendants Eric and Janet Partanen was dismissed, as the plaintiff failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they intentionally breached the order, and Janet was not a party to the proceeding when the order was made.

The penalty phase for Lauri and the issue of costs were adjourned.

A case conference was held to manage multiple related actions.

The court noted that Commercial List matters were being traversed to the regular Civil list.

Directions were given for the filing of outstanding pleadings, setting aside defaults by consent, and establishing a mutually convenient discovery schedule with a target completion date of December 31, 2022.

The court also provided instructions for scheduling anticipated motions, including a potential Mareva injunction and a motion to join the trials.

A case conference was held regarding five related actions, three of which were on the Commercial List and two were regular civil matters.

Counsel agreed that the actions should be case managed together for efficiency.

The judge agreed to act as the case management judge for all five cases, which will require transferring the Commercial List actions to regular civil actions.

The applicant municipality and chief building official sought an interlocutory injunction to restrain the respondents from operating an addiction recovery centre on their property.

The applicants argued the property was not zoned for institutional use, while the respondents claimed the facility qualified as a permitted 'Lodge' or 'Resort'.

Applying the modified RJR MacDonald test for public authorities, the court found a strong prima facie case that the use breached the zoning by-law, as the facility's primary purpose was health and welfare, not catering to the vacationing public.

The interlocutory injunction was granted.