John Philpott

The applicants, who rent water heaters and HVAC equipment to consumers, brought an application for a declaration that they were entitled to the end-of-term lease payments when a customer exercised their right to an early buyout.

The respondent had previously purchased a 10-year stream of future payments under the lease agreements.

The court interpreted the assignment agreement and found that the respondent purchased the assigned payments, which explicitly included income derived from early buyouts.

The application was dismissed.

The applicant sought an urgent order for the partition and sale of a property held as tenants in common with the respondent, citing terminal illness.

The respondent opposed the sale, arguing it would cause him severe personal, emotional, and financial hardship amounting to oppression, and would prejudice his ongoing family law claims for resulting or constructive trust over the property.

The court dismissed the applicant's request for partition and sale, finding that the respondent had demonstrated sufficient hardship and that his trust claims were not frivolous and required a full trial.

The court also declined to grant declaratory relief regarding a second property, deeming the issue hypothetical and subject to alternative dispute resolution or the family law proceeding.

The defendants sought costs on a substantial indemnity basis after successfully defending a motion to extend an interim injunction.

The court declined to award costs immediately, exercising its discretion to defer costs to the cause.

The court reasoned that the defendants might ultimately be found liable at trial for serious breaches of fiduciary duty and unfair competition, making an immediate costs award inappropriate.

The court also noted the defendants violated formatting rules by submitting single-spaced materials to circumvent page limits.

The plaintiffs moved to continue an interim injunction granted a year prior, which prohibited the defendants (former fiduciary employees) from soliciting the plaintiffs' customers and employees.

The court dismissed the motion to extend the injunction, finding that the one-year period had already provided the plaintiffs with a reasonable amount of time to solidify their customer relationships and protect their goodwill from the defendants' unfair 'springboard' competition.

The court also directed the proceedings into case management.

The moving parties sought interim injunctive relief arising from the alleged secret creation and operation of a competing business by insiders and key employees within a longstanding family-run sign business.

Applying the RJR-MacDonald framework, the court found at least a strong prima facie case of breaches of fiduciary duties, solicitation of employees and customers, and misuse or threatened misuse of confidential information.

The court held that irreparable harm was established through likely loss of clients, employees, market share, and reputation, and that the balance of convenience favoured limited restraints.

An interim order issued barring solicitation of specified customers, general contractors, and current employees, and prohibiting possession, disclosure, or use of confidential information, but the court declined to impose a complete interim non-competition ban.

The applicants, judgment creditors of the respondents for over $26 million USD arising from a fraudulent lending scheme, moved to discontinue the payment of living expenses and legal fees to the respondents and their related trusts from the receivership estate.

The trusts brought a cross-motion to strike the Receiver's Eleventh Report, arguing the Receiver exceeded its mandate by tracing funds and making observations about badges of a sham trust.

The court dismissed the motion to strike, finding the Receiver acted within its court-ordered investigatory powers and did not usurp the court's role.

The court granted the applicants' motion to terminate funding, holding that the respondents had exhausted their appeals, were now judgment debtors, and failed to meet the test for funding from frozen assets, as they had not provided full disclosure and the funds belonged to their creditors.

This motion concerned a plaintiff's application to find a defendant in contempt of court for breaching a prior permanent injunction against defamation.

The defendant, who had previously engaged in a relentless and malicious online campaign against the plaintiff, continued to publish defamatory statements despite a court order.

The court found the defendant guilty of contempt, emphasizing that the prior order was clear and unequivocal, and the defendant had actual knowledge and intentionally breached it.

The court also provided directions for the defendant to purge his contempt, including apologizing and removing all offending online content.

Additionally, the decision addressed issues related to the defendant's examination in aid of execution, providing clear instructions for compliance and adjourning the request to examine the defendant's spouse.

The wife was largely successful on a motion for interim disbursements under the OBCA, temporary spousal support, and further financial disclosure.

Both parties sought costs of the motion.

The court found the wife was the successful party and that the husband's behavior regarding disclosure was unreasonable.

After considering the parties' offers to settle and the proportionality of the fees, the court awarded the wife costs of $97,523.88, representing 65% of her actual costs.

The costs were ordered to be paid equally by the husband personally and the corporations he controls.

The defendants/plaintiffs by counterclaim brought an urgent motion for an interim injunction to restrain the plaintiffs/defendants to the counterclaim from publishing defamatory statements and images on Instagram and other internet platforms, and from contacting them.

The court found that the moving parties met the stringent test for an interlocutory injunction in a defamation context, noting the extensive and vitriolic nature of the posts, which included threats and the improper use of information obtained through ex parte Anton Piller and Mareva orders.

The motion was granted.

The defendants (plaintiffs by counterclaim) brought an urgent motion for interim injunctive relief to stop the plaintiffs and their principals from engaging in a relentless campaign of online harassment and defamation via Instagram.

The dispute originated from a failed transaction involving luxury handbags and watches, which previously led to ex parte Mareva and Anton Piller orders against the defendants.

The court found that the principals of the plaintiff corporation had posted highly defamatory statements, threats, and images obtained from the execution of the court orders.

Applying the stringent test for defamation injunctions, the court granted the requested relief, ordering the removal of the posts and restraining further contact and publication.

The moving party wife sought interim costs and disbursements of $500,000 to fund her family law and oppression remedy claims against the responding party husband, who controlled the family's closely-held corporations.

She also sought temporary spousal support and an order compelling the husband to answer undertakings and refusals from his questioning.

The court awarded $250,000 in interim costs under the OBCA as an advance against her shareholdings, finding her oppression claim had sufficient merit and she lacked liquid resources.

The court also ordered the husband to pay $3,000 per month in temporary spousal support to equalize the parties' net disposable incomes, and compelled him to answer the majority of the outstanding undertakings and refusals.

The plaintiffs brought a motion in 2019 to enforce a judgment obtained in 1997, seeking a further accounting from the judgment debtor and leave to examine third parties in aid of execution.

The court found that the plaintiffs' extreme delay constituted laches and that any potential claims against the third parties were statute-barred under the Limitations Act, 2002.

The court dismissed the request to examine third parties but ordered the self-represented judgment debtor to re-attend an examination to answer specific questions on a best efforts basis.

The defendants sought to transfer a civil action from Toronto to Newmarket, arguing common issues with a related family law proceeding.

The plaintiff opposed, asserting the civil action involved discrete transactions and that the family law matter was overly complex and largely irrelevant to his claims.

The court dismissed the transfer motion, finding the moving parties failed to demonstrate that the proposed venue was significantly better, particularly given the limited overlap of issues and the potential for undue complication of the civil claim within the broader family law litigation.

The appellant appealed a Rule 2.1 order dismissing his claim as frivolous, vexatious, and an abuse of process.

The claim arose from an incident at the respondent's café where the respondent allegedly refused to provide ice in a drink for the appellant's disabled friend.

The appellant sought damages for isolation and negative emotional impact allegedly resulting from this incident and subsequent events.

The Court of Appeal upheld the dismissal, finding the claim had no hope of success and that Rule 2.1 was properly invoked.

The appellant also sought to note the respondent in default for failing to file a proper statement of defence, but this request was dismissed as moot following the action's dismissal.

This is a costs judgment following an interim proceeding where an injunction was granted.

The court received costs submissions from all parties.

However, due to allegations of subsequent events that may impact the appropriate costs award, the judge exercised discretion under section 131 of the Courts of Justice Act to reserve the costs of the interim proceeding to the trial judge or, with consent, to the judge disposing of an oppression application.

The court emphasized that costs are not appropriately awarded on the interim proceeding until an assessment of evidence and findings of fact considering these subsequent events can be made.

The plaintiffs sought an interim injunction to restrain the defendants, including a former shareholder and several former employees, from competing against the plaintiff company and soliciting its clients and employees.

The court found that the former shareholder breached the restrictive covenants in the unanimous shareholder agreement and his fiduciary duties by orchestrating a plan to use confidential information to divert business to a newly formed competitor.

The court applied the strong prima facie case standard for the first branch of the RJR-MacDonald test and found that the plaintiffs established a strong case, would suffer irreparable harm, and that the balance of convenience favoured granting the injunction.

The court granted the injunction against the former shareholder and the former employees, enjoining them from using confidential information and competing in association with the former shareholder.

The moving party sought to set aside prior Mareva injunction orders under Rule 59.06(2)(a) of the Rules of Civil Procedure on the basis that the orders were obtained through fraudulent misrepresentations.

The alleged fraud concerned a business partner’s denial of authorship of an email offering the moving party a profit-sharing interest, which later emerged during related criminal proceedings as authentic.

The court found that the denial of the email constituted fraudulent testimony.

However, the court held that the email was not material to the motions judge’s earlier decision granting and maintaining the Mareva injunctions, which rested on separate findings regarding unauthorized diversion of company assets.

As the alleged fraud did not form part of the foundation of the earlier orders, the motion to set them aside was dismissed.

The Court dismissed an appeal from a civil contempt finding against a lawyer who returned trust funds to his client despite a Mareva injunction.

The Court held that civil contempt requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt of an intentional act that breaches a clear order with notice, and does not require contumacious intent.

The Court also held the motions judge erred by reopening and setting aside the initial contempt finding on evidence that should have been filed at the liability stage.

This action and amalgamated application arose from a series of informal secured and unsecured loans, mortgages, promissory notes, and related investment dealings between the plaintiff and the responding parties.

The court found that $200,000 in fire insurance proceeds received by the mortgagees as loss payees had to be treated as satisfying the secured mortgage debt to that extent, and could not be redirected to unsecured debts while the mortgagees still asserted the full secured claims.

The court held that the accounting provided by the responding parties was materially inaccurate, declared both power of sale proceedings invalid, and discharged the NUTOK mortgage.

Most unsecured promissory note claims were statute barred, but the KUL mortgage balance, the Xtra Gold debt and share proceeds, and two 2009 promissory notes remained owing.

The applicant sought to set aside an arbitration award requiring payment of finder’s fees arising from investments made by a third-party investor introduced through the respondent.

The applicant argued the arbitrator committed unreasonable errors of law, improperly relied on a prior agreement, misinterpreted a non‑circumvention clause, and exceeded jurisdiction by determining issues relating to securities law registration requirements.

The court held that even if reasonableness review were available, the arbitrator’s interpretation of the finder’s fee agreement was reasonable and grounded in the contractual language and factual matrix.

The court further held that securities law compliance issues were capable of arbitration and that the applicant had waived jurisdictional objections by raising the issue before the arbitrator.

The application to set aside the award was dismissed and the cross‑application to enforce the arbitration award was granted.