Laurie Lee Aitchison

The defendant Sovereign General Insurance Company brought a motion under Rule 21.01(1)(b) to strike out the plaintiffs' claim and Bank of Montreal's cross-claim, arguing no reasonable cause of action.

Sovereign contended that the claim for recovery of an unpaid judgment against a mortgage broker's errors and omissions policy was not covered by s. 132(1) of the Insurance Act due to pure economic loss, and was outside the policy's scope or excluded.

The court accepted that s. 132 did not apply to pure economic loss but found it was not "plain and obvious" that the claim lacked a reasonable cause of action under the policy itself, particularly regarding whether the underlying agreement constituted "professional services" of a mortgage broker.

The motion to strike was dismissed.

The Estate Trustees moved for court approval of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and Minutes of Settlement (MOS), and to enforce the MOU against a beneficiary.

The court found that the beneficiary's consent to the MOU was conditional on obtaining independent legal advice, which was subsequently withdrawn.

The MOS, negotiated without all parties, contained terms significantly different from the MOU.

The court ruled that the MOU was void due to the withdrawal of conditional consent, and the MOS could not be approved as it was not agreed to by all parties and contained inconsistent terms.

The motion was dismissed, and the parties were directed to update estate information for further proceedings.

The applicant sought a declaration that his insurer had a duty to defend him in a civil action arising from an altercation that resulted in an assault conviction and alleged personal injuries to the plaintiff.

The insurer denied coverage relying on policy exclusions for intentional or criminal acts.

The court applied duty‑to‑defend principles and held that where pleadings include a potentially independent negligence claim, an insurer must defend if there is a possibility that the claim could fall within coverage.

Because the underlying statement of claim pleaded both assault and negligence and it remained possible that liability could be established on a non‑intentional basis, the exclusion provisions could not yet be conclusively applied.

The insurer was therefore required to defend the action, except with respect to punitive or exemplary damages which were expressly excluded.