Nisar Patel

The defendant, a former employee of the plaintiff geoscientific company, brought a motion to strike the statement of claim without leave to amend.

The plaintiff had sued the defendant for communicating with the Professional Geoscientists Association of Ontario, which led to a regulatory investigation into the company.

The court found that the defendant's communications with the quasi-judicial regulatory body were protected by absolute privilege, and that the statement of claim disclosed no reasonable cause of action to the extent it relied on those communications.

The court further found the action constituted an abuse of process, as the plaintiff sought to weaponize legally protected communications with a regulator.

The statement of claim was struck in its entirety without leave to amend, and costs of $7,916.78 were awarded to the defendant.

The decision addresses a motion by Jigar Vijaykumar Patel to extend the time for delivering costs submissions and the determination of costs following an unsuccessful motion to set aside a prior order.

The court grants the extension without costs and fixes costs of the motion on a substantial indemnity basis, finding that Jigar’s conduct, while not egregious, merited an elevated scale due to an attempt to mislead the court.

The defendant brought a motion to set aside a noting in default after failing to file a statement of defence in time.

The plaintiff opposed the motion, arguing the defendant had not explained the delay or shown extraordinary circumstances.

The court applied the factors from Franchetti v. Huggins and found that the delay was short, the defendant had been seeking counsel, and the preference is for cases to be decided on their merits.

The motion to set aside the noting in default was granted.