2 total
Substantially successful moving party received reduced partial indemnity costs.
This was a standalone costs endorsement following a motion to impose a discovery plan and resolve disputes over relevance and proportionality of document production categories.
The moving party obtained the principal relief on the underlying motion and sought partial indemnity costs, while the responding party argued for no costs or a substantially reduced amount and also sought costs of an adjournment.
Applying the court's broad discretion under s. 131 of the Courts of Justice Act and Rules 57.01, 1.04(1.1), and 39.02(4)(b), the court found the moving party was substantially more successful but reduced its claim for divided success, unreasonable expense, and unnecessary travel-related cross-examination costs.
Costs were fixed at $30,500 inclusive of HST and disbursements, payable within 30 days.
The court imposed a narrowed discovery plan, rejecting broad document requests as disproportionate and irrelevant to the pleadings.
The defendant, ASG Technologies Group, Inc. (ASG), brought a motion to impose a discovery plan, which the plaintiff, The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company (Manulife), opposed, proposing its own version.
The primary dispute concerned the relevance and proportionality of various document categories requested by each party in a software licensing dispute.
The Master largely rejected Manulife's broad requests for "misconduct documents" and "valuation documents" related to ASG's other customers and internal financial data, finding them overbroad, disproportionate, or not sufficiently supported by the pleadings.
The Master also rejected ASG's requests for documents related to Manulife's internal dealings with its own customers regarding ASG's products.
The court imposed a discovery plan with specific, narrowed categories of documents to be produced and set deadlines for document exchange and examinations for discovery.
