Alan Price

The plaintiffs moved to exempt a $145,000 personal injury settlement from garnishment by a non-party judgment creditor.

The creditor argued the plaintiffs lacked clean hands due to past conduct in evading judgment.

The court found the plaintiffs' conduct did not amount to a lack of clean hands and held that damages for pain and suffering, along with associated pre-judgment interest and legal costs, are exempt from garnishment.

The motion was granted, and the full settlement amount was exempted.

The Team Lead-Civil in the Toronto Region issued an administrative endorsement assigning Justice P. Cavanagh as the case management judge for the actions and directed that a case conference be held as soon as possible.

The plaintiff moved for summary judgment to recover monies paid to the Canada Revenue Agency for source deductions and HST arising from a sole proprietorship operated in her name, and also sought dismissal of the defendant's counterclaim.

The parties had been in a common law relationship and disputed whether there was an oral agreement requiring the defendant to pay the tax liabilities of the business.

The court held that the record contained disputed evidence and required credibility findings that could not be made on a summary judgment motion.

The court also held that the counterclaim was properly brought under the Rules of Civil Procedure because the family property provisions of the Family Law Act do not apply to common law spouses.

The motion was dismissed, with costs in the cause.