Louis-Pierre Gregoire

The defendants brought a motion to disqualify the plaintiffs' counsel and their law firm on the basis of a conflict of interest.

The defendant, Marc Lewis, had previously retained the same law firm for an employment matter with a former employer.

The court applied the MacDonald Estate test and found that the previous retainer was not sufficiently related to the current malfeasance action, and no relevant confidential information was imparted.

Furthermore, the law firm had implemented an ethical wall.

The motion to disqualify counsel was dismissed.

Following a lengthy trial where the plaintiff was awarded $50,000 but the defendants obtained a costs award of over $3.4 million, the defendants moved to recover those costs from four non-party litigation loan providers who had advanced funds to the plaintiff.

The court declined to order costs against the non-parties, finding that while the loans carried exorbitant interest rates, providing them did not amount to an abuse of process under the 'person of straw' test or the court's inherent jurisdiction.

The court also noted that while litigation loans should be approved by the court in class proceedings, the statutory requirement to do so did not exist at the time the loans were made.

A litigation funding company sued a personal injury lawyer and his firm to recover amounts advanced under several loan agreements used to fund litigation disbursements.

The dispute concerned the meaning of “transfer of the client’s file” in the contracts and whether such transfers triggered immediate repayment obligations.

The defendants argued the term was ambiguous and relied on an alleged side agreement that loans need not be repaid where settlements were under $50,000.

The court held the contracts were clear that repayment became due when client files were transferred to new counsel and rejected the alleged side agreement as not altering the written agreements.

Judgment was granted to the lender for the outstanding balances with interest and the defendants’ counterclaim was dismissed.