Megan Marrie

The moving defendants sought to strike the plaintiff’s statement of claim alleging fraud, conspiracy, abuse of process, and related torts arising from earlier bankruptcy litigation.

The claim effectively alleged that opposing counsel, the bankruptcy trustee, and others fabricated evidence that led to an adverse judgment in prior proceedings.

The court held that the pleading failed to meet the requirement that fraud be pleaded with particularity and that the action constituted an impermissible collateral attack and relitigation of issues already decided and upheld on appeal.

The doctrines of issue estoppel and abuse of process barred the claim.

The court struck the statement of claim without leave to amend and awarded costs.

The appellant appealed a motion judge's decision refusing to permit the addition of lawyer defendants to a statement of claim.

The motion judge had determined the proposed claims were not tenable at law.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding that the proposed fresh as amended statement of claim, which alleged the lawyers provided incorrect advice regarding a share repurchase and litigation exposure, disclosed a tenable cause of action.

The Court also noted the motion judge improperly engaged in an assessment of the merits rather than solely assessing whether the claims were tenable at law.

The City of Hamilton commenced an action against the architect and general contractor of an arena project for construction defects.

After years of inaction, the action was dismissed for delay by the registrar when the City's counsel inadvertently failed to attend a status hearing.

The City's motion to set aside the dismissal was denied by the motion judge.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal upheld the dismissal, finding that the 15-year delay was inordinately long, the critical five-and-a-half-year period of inaction was unexplained, and the delay caused actual prejudice to the defendants due to the unavailability and faded memories of key witnesses.

The individual defendants, who were architects and a contractor, sought leave to appeal a motions judge's decision refusing to grant summary judgment dismissing the claims against them personally.

The plaintiffs had sued the individuals despite the relevant contracts being with their respective corporations.

The Divisional Court granted leave to appeal, finding good reason to doubt the correctness of the motions judge's application of the summary judgment test.

The court noted that the motions judge allowed the claims to proceed based on 'just barely some factual basis' rather than requiring a genuine issue for trial, and that the scope of personal liability for corporate directors and employees is a matter of public importance.