George Tsakalis

The insurer brought a motion to have an insurance coverage action tried together with an earlier negligence action arising from the same residential renovation damage.

The court held that causation of the alleged property damage was a common and critical factual issue in both actions, and that the relief claimed arose out of the same occurrence or series of occurrences.

Applying the Rule 6.01 discretionary framework and the non-exhaustive factors from prior authority, the court found that overlapping evidence, risk of inconsistent findings, and avoidance of duplicate expert and witness testimony strongly favoured a joint trial.

The motion was granted, joint procedural directions were made, and there was no order as to costs.

The appellant appealed the dismissal of his action against his former litigation counsel for solicitor's negligence, breach of contract, and breach of fiduciary duty.

The appellant alleged his counsel wrongly consented to default judgment and failed to respond to the bank's counsel, leading to a receivership over his farm properties.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the trial judge's factual conclusions—that the counsel acted diligently and was not negligent—were firmly anchored in the evidentiary record and free from palpable and overriding error.

The appeal regarding trial costs was also dismissed.