Mark Emil Walli

The plaintiff was successful in resisting the defendants' motion to stay this proposed class action and sought costs on a partial indemnity basis.

The defendants argued the costs should be reduced by the amount spent cross-examining a lawyer from a parallel British Columbia action who intervened on their own initiative.

The court agreed, finding the defendants did not solicit the affidavit and should not bear the costs of the cross-examination, awarding the plaintiff $33,500 in costs.

The defendants brought a motion under section 5(6) of the Class Proceedings Act, 1992 to stay a proposed global securities class action in Ontario in favour of a similar proposed class action in British Columbia.

The Ontario action alleged statutory secondary market misrepresentation and common law negligent misrepresentation regarding the defendants' artificial intelligence products.

The court considered the objectives and factors under section 5(7) of the Act, noting that the Ontario action was more advanced, had a more streamlined pleading, and that the corporate defendant was a well-resourced telecommunications company capable of litigating in multiple jurisdictions.

The court concluded that the objectives of judicial economy and ensuring justice for all parties favoured allowing the Ontario action to proceed.

The motion for a stay was dismissed.

Following a decision granting leave to proceed with secondary market misrepresentation claims and certifying a class action, the parties disputed the settlement of the order, the certification of the primary market subclass's financial outlook claim, and costs.

The court held that the primary market subclass's claim remained certified, as importing a merits-based leave test into the certification criteria was improper.

The court settled the order in accordance with the plaintiff's draft, declined to clarify findings of fact, and awarded the plaintiff $950,000 in costs based on overall success.

In a securities class action arising from an issuer's restated financial statements and revised guidance, the court considered leave under the Securities Act for secondary market claims, certification under the Class Proceedings Act, and the defendants' summary judgment motion on limitation issues affecting the primary market claim.

The court held there was a reasonable possibility of success on claims based on conceded financial misstatements, omission of intersegment sales from the IPO prospectus, and related officer certifications, but not on alleged misstatements in the issuer's financial outlook because the assumptions were reasonable when made and the plaintiff had not shown materiality.

The action was certified as a class proceeding, with the court rejecting proposed subclass restrictions tied to Canadian underwriters and post-correction shareholding.

On the limitations issue, the court held that the Securities Act ousts common-law discoverability for the 180-day period and requires actual knowledge of the facts giving rise to the claim.

Summary judgment was dismissed because the record did not establish that the representative plaintiff had actual knowledge outside the limitation period.

The defendants, The Dominion of Canada General Insurance Company and The Travelers Companies Inc., brought a motion to strike out portions of the plaintiff Municipal Electric Association Reciprocal Insurance Exchange's statement of claim.

The challenged claims included inducing breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, knowing assistance of breach of fiduciary duty, and civil conspiracy.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that the plaintiff had adequately pleaded material facts for each cause of action, meeting the stringent test for a Rule 21.01(1)(b) motion, which requires establishing that the claim has no reasonable prospect of success.

The defendants moved to dismiss a 2009 action for delay and, alternatively, for security for costs.

The court found the delay of 13 years to be inordinate and inexcusable, primarily due to the plaintiff Lawrence Mark Dale's inactivity and failure to provide explanations or respond to the motion.

A presumption of prejudice to the defendants arose, which the plaintiff failed to rebut, particularly given the nature of the conspiracy claims requiring witness recollection.

The action was dismissed for delay.

The court also addressed the security for costs motion, noting that if the action had not been dismissed, Mr. Dale would have been ordered to post $400,000 in security for costs to TRREB due to an outstanding costs order against him in another proceeding.

The plaintiffs in a price-fixing class action regarding electrolytic capacitors moved for court approval of a $5.9 million settlement with the Panasonic defendants, as well as approval of class counsel fees and disbursements.

The court found the settlement, which included significant cooperation from the settling defendants, to be fair, reasonable, and in the best interests of the class.

The court also approved the retainer agreements and the requested class counsel fees of $1,487,500 (25% of the settlement) and disbursements of $141,866.96, noting the complexity and risk of the litigation.

The plaintiff in a class action alleging a price-fixing conspiracy regarding film capacitors moved for approval of a settlement with the Panasonic defendants and for approval of class counsel fees.

The court found the $1.35 million settlement, which included valuable cooperation from the settling defendants, to be fair and reasonable despite being heavily discounted from the estimated exposure.

The court also approved the requested class counsel fees of 25% of the settlement, but ordered the payment to be split into two installments to incentivize counsel to advance the litigation more expeditiously.

The appellants appealed the dismissal of their action against the estate of their first cousin, Dr. Sherman, and others.

The appellants claimed that Dr. Sherman owed them an ad hoc fiduciary duty to look after their financial interests and that he breached this duty by failing to honour an option agreement that would have allowed them to acquire shares in the family businesses.

The motion judge dismissed the action on two grounds: first, that no genuine issue requiring trial existed regarding the fiduciary duty, and second, that the action constituted an abuse of process as it attempted to re-litigate issues already determined in a prior unsuccessful action against Royal Trust.

The Court of Appeal upheld the dismissal.

The moving party brought a motion under Rule 34.10 of the Rules of Civil Procedure to compel the responding parties to produce documents in advance of cross-examinations on affidavits sworn in support of the responding parties' summary judgment motions.

The responding parties argued the motion was prohibited under Rule 48.04(1) because the action had been set down for trial, and that the requests were disproportionate.

The court held that Rule 48.04(1) did not bar the motion and the moving party had not waived the right to documentary discovery.

However, because the responding parties had never served affidavits of documents, the court dismissed the motion without prejudice, directing the responding parties to first serve affidavits of documents so that relevance and proportionality could be properly assessed.

The defendants in a proposed price-fixing class action brought a motion to strike the affidavits of the plaintiffs' economics expert, arguing the proposed methodologies for calculating aggregate damages and pass-through rates were invalid and unreliable.

The court applied the test for admissibility of expert evidence and found that the expert's proposed regression models and economic analyses met the threshold for reliability and were highly probative to the certification motion.

The motion to strike was dismissed, with the issue of the legal relevance of umbrella purchaser claims deferred to the certification hearing.

An insured brought an action against international insurers for breach of an insurance contract.

The insurers moved to stay the action and refer the dispute to arbitration in London, England pursuant to an arbitration clause in the policy.

The motion judge dismissed the stay motion, finding that the "Action Against Insurer" endorsement provided an alternative method of dispute resolution allowing domestic court proceedings.

The appellate court reversed, holding that the arbitration clause was mandatory and the sole method of dispute resolution, and that the "Action Against Insurer" clause was a service of suit provision that did not conflict with the arbitration clause.

The court also clarified that the Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration applies to agreements providing for arbitration of certain disputes, not only those providing for arbitration as the sole method of dispute resolution.

The defendants brought a motion for summary judgment to dismiss the plaintiffs' action, which alleged that the defendant breached an ad hoc fiduciary duty owed to them regarding an option agreement and an equity position in a pharmaceutical company.

The court found that the defendant made no commitment or undertaking to the plaintiffs that would give rise to a fiduciary duty.

Furthermore, the court held that the action was an abuse of process, as it was an attempt to re-litigate issues concerning the option agreement that had already been decided against the plaintiffs in a previous proceeding against the estate's executor.

The defendants' motion for summary judgment was granted and the action was dismissed.

The plaintiff sought approval of a $17.5 million settlement with the remaining defendants in a class action regarding a charitable tax scheme.

The court approved the settlement as fair and reasonable, noting the significant risks of further litigation, including enforcement issues in Bermuda.

The court also approved class counsel's 33% contingency fee of $5,829,427.20 plus HST, and a $50,000 honorarium for the representative plaintiff, who made extraordinary efforts and financial sacrifices.

A costs request by third parties was dismissed.

The defendants brought a motion to stay the plaintiff's action based on a mandatory arbitration clause in the base trade credit insurance policy.

The plaintiff opposed the motion, relying on a Canadian endorsement that permitted an action against the insurer in Canada and stated that endorsements prevail in the event of a conflict.

The court found that the contract, read as a whole, provided alternative methods for dispute resolution and that the endorsement prevailed over the base policy's arbitration clause.

The motion to stay the action was dismissed.

The plaintiffs brought a motion to certify a class action against several manufacturers of lithium-ion batteries, alleging a price-fixing conspiracy that artificially inflated prices for direct and indirect purchasers in Canada.

The court certified the action solely for the statutory cause of action under section 36 of the Competition Act.

The court excluded 'umbrella purchasers' (those who bought from non-defendants) from the class, finding it plain and obvious they lacked a cause of action due to indeterminate liability and lack of restitutionary basis.

The court also declined to certify the common law claims for unlawful means conspiracy and unjust enrichment, holding that they were precluded by the comprehensive statutory scheme of the Competition Act.

The remaining certification criteria were met for the statutory claim.

In a proposed price-fixing class action involving lithium ion batteries, both sides brought refusals motions arising from cross-examinations conducted in advance of certification.

The court held that questions probing how class counsel came to act for the proposed representative plaintiffs, and requests for a retailer plaintiff’s business documents, were not relevant to the certification criteria.

However, questions to the plaintiffs’ expert about whether inclusion of contract phone purchasers complicated pass-through analysis were relevant to testing the expert’s methodology and had to be answered.

Questions to defence witnesses about alleged meetings and documents referenced in a related U.S. proceeding were refused as going to the merits rather than certification.

In a certified franchise class action alleging price maintenance and breaches of franchise law, the representative plaintiffs sought court approval of a proposed settlement under the Class Proceedings Act, 1992.

The settlement provided $275,000 to reimburse class counsel disbursements and required class members to release all claims relating to the purchase, sale, distribution, promotion, or marketing of supplies.

The court held that although the settlement outcome was otherwise reasonable given the weak prospects of success and litigation risks, the release clause was overbroad because it could bar future claims unrelated to the existing alleged misconduct.

The judge found that approving such a release would unfairly deprive class members of potential future claims.

The court therefore refused to approve the settlement.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario issued a costs endorsement following an appeal and cross-appeal.

The appellant was awarded costs of the appeal on a partial indemnity scale fixed at $45,000.

The appellant and other responding insurers were awarded additional costs fixed at $20,000.

The appellant insurer appealed a summary judgment ordering it to pay US$15 million for defence costs under a directors' and officers' liability policy.

The dispute centered on whether an exclusion clause (Endorsement #14) unambiguously excluded coverage for claims against the insured's directors and officers acting in their capacity as executives of a bankrupt former subsidiary.

The Court of Appeal found the exclusion clause ambiguous, as it could reasonably be interpreted to either exclude or preserve coverage depending on the capacity in which the executives were sued.

Because the factual matrix did not resolve the ambiguity and the motion judge had not made findings regarding the parties' reasonable expectations, the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, set aside the summary judgment, and returned the matter to the Superior Court for trial.