Murray Teitel

The applicant father brought a motion for interim shared parenting time for their 17-month-old child.

The respondent mother opposed overnights, citing family violence allegations, the child's breastfeeding, and her religious beliefs.

The court granted the father a graduated schedule leading to shared parenting, finding that the family violence allegations were insufficient to deny overnights, breastfeeding was not a bar to the father having overnight parenting time, and religious freedom must align with the child's best interests.

The decision emphasized the importance of the child maintaining a strong bond with both parents and restoring the pre-separation status quo.

The plaintiff brought a motion to compel the defendant to answer undertakings regarding TD Bank account records.

The court found that the defendant had used her best efforts to obtain the requested information from the bank.

The court dismissed the motion, noting that the plaintiff's appropriate remedy was to bring a Rule 30.10 motion against the bank directly.

The court also declined to order the defendant to bring the Rule 30.10 motion or to sign a direction permitting the plaintiff to interact with the bank.

The moving party brought a motion for the immediate listing and sale of the jointly owned matrimonial home and an equal disbursement of the net proceeds.

The responding party agreed to the sale but sought to delay the listing and requested that 50% of the net proceeds be held in trust to secure potential property and support claims, as well as future assessment costs.

The court ordered the immediate listing and sale of the home, finding no valid reason for delay.

The court rejected the request to hold 50% of the proceeds in trust, but ordered $50,000 from each party's share to be held in trust to secure the moving party's share of capital expenses and potential assessment and education costs.

This endorsement addresses the costs of an appeal where the defendant's appeal from a master's decision, granting the plaintiffs leave to amend their statement of claim, was dismissed.

The plaintiffs, as successful parties on appeal, sought partial indemnity costs.

The court awarded the plaintiffs partial indemnity costs of $8,975.75, payable within 30 days, finding that the defendant's re-litigation of issues on appeal justified the award, despite the underlying motion being for an amendment.

The defendant appealed a master's order granting the plaintiffs leave to amend their statement of claim to include a breach of an earlier manufacturing agreement, after the expiry of the limitation period.

The central issue was whether the proposed amendment constituted a new cause of action.

The court dismissed the appeal, finding no error in the master's decision that the amendment did not introduce a new cause of action, as it arose from the same factual matrix and alleged breaches, and the defendant had notice of the underlying facts.

The court affirmed that the "clean hands" doctrine is not applicable to limitation period analyses and that the tenability of amendments is assessed by assuming pleaded facts are true, deferring substantive merits to trial or summary judgment.

The applicant sought costs on a full recovery basis in the amount of $11,053.80 following a successful motion to lift a stay of proceedings and obtain temporary spousal support.

The respondent sought costs of $2,000.00 payable in the cause and argued the applicant had acted unreasonably.

The court found the applicant was the successful party and entitled to costs under Rule 24(1) of the Family Law Rules.

The court rejected arguments that the applicant's behaviour was unreasonable and found that the respondent had acted in bad faith in commencing a divorce application in the Superior Court.

Applying the principles of reasonableness and proportionality, the court awarded costs of $7,000.00 rather than the full amount sought, payable in two installments.

A non-party, Dennis Cibulka, brought a motion to set aside a default judgment of foreclosure and to be added as a defendant in an action concerning a residential property he has occupied since 1959.

The court found that Cibulka was a necessary party to the action and that the interests of justice favored granting the relief sought.

The motion to set aside default judgment was made promptly upon Cibulka learning of it, there was a reasonable prospect of payment if the mortgage was enforceable, and significant net equity in the property would otherwise result in a windfall to the plaintiff.

The court granted the motion, adding Cibulka as a defendant, setting aside the default judgment, and awarded costs to Cibulka.

The Plaintiffs brought a motion for leave to amend their Statement of Claim to include claims based on an earlier 2013 agreement, in addition to the initially pleaded 2015 agreement, for the collection of outstanding invoices.

The Defendant opposed, arguing the amendments constituted a new cause of action after the limitation period and would cause irremediable prejudice.

The court found the proposed amendments arose from the same factual matrix, did not constitute a fundamentally different claim, and that the Defendant had notice of the facts.

The court also found no actual prejudice would result.

Leave to amend was granted.

The solicitors, Murray Teitel, Newman, Weinstock, and Green and Spiegel, appealed an assessment officer's decision that reduced their legal accounts by $2,166.57 and denied costs for the assessment.

The original assessment concerned 21 accounts for services rendered over 24 years ago for North York Community Credit Union, with the client, Mary Serniak, having the right to assess them.

The assessment officer found that some time billed for negotiations was excessive and unnecessary, and that both parties contributed equally to the inordinate length and cost of the assessment, thus warranting no costs award.

The Superior Court dismissed the solicitors' appeal on both the reduction of accounts and the denial of assessment costs, finding no error in principle or palpable and overriding error by the assessment officer.

The court also awarded costs of the appeal to the client.

The applicant brought a motion seeking to lift an automatic stay of proceedings triggered by the respondent's filing of a divorce application in Superior Court, and for temporary spousal support.

The applicant had previously filed an application for spousal support in Ontario Court of Justice.

The respondent opposed the motion, arguing that the applicant entered the marriage fraudulently to obtain immigration status and lacked clean hands to seek equitable relief.

The court found that the respondent acted in bad faith by filing the divorce application shortly before a scheduled hearing on spousal support, and that the applicant would suffer unreasonable prejudice if the stay remained in place.

The court lifted the stay and awarded temporary spousal support.

This case involved a commercial landlord-tenant dispute concerning a lease for an auto plaza unit.

The landlord sought declarations of lease breach and termination, damages for arrears, unapproved alterations, oil spills, and an order for possession.

The court found that the lease was not renewed for a second term, and the tenancy continued on a month-to-month basis, which was properly terminated.

The court awarded the landlord damages for outstanding lease payments, water bills, and fines incurred due to the tenants' unapproved alterations.

Issues regarding further damages for alterations and environmental contamination from oil spills were bifurcated for a future assessment.

The defendants brought a motion to stay the plaintiff's action in Ontario on the basis of *forum non conveniens*, arguing Alberta was the more appropriate forum.

The plaintiff, an Ontario printing company, sued for unpaid accounts from the defendants, Alberta-based publishers, for books printed in China and.

The defendants alleged significant deficiencies in the books.

Applying the *Van Breda* factors, the court found that while Ontario had jurisdiction, Alberta was clearly the more appropriate forum due to the location of the majority of witnesses (11 of 14 identified witnesses in Alberta/Vancouver), the bulk of physical evidence (77,000 books) in Alberta, and the performance of the contract in Alberta.

The Ontario action was stayed, with costs of the motion fixed at $6,500 payable by the plaintiff to the defendants in the cause, contingent on the plaintiff commencing an action in Alberta within 90 days.

A father sought to change a consent custody and access order regarding his son, seeking sole custody and restricting the mother's access.

The parents had moved to Barcelona, Spain with their son to attend a prestigious football school.

The mother subsequently refused to return to Spain and withheld the child.

The father brought motions in both Ontario and Spain.

The court determined that Ontario lacked jurisdiction to hear the motion to change, as the child was habitually resident in Spain.

The court declined to exercise jurisdiction under the Children's Law Reform Act and stayed the Ontario motion, reverting to the original consent order of February 2013 as a holding order pending resolution in Spain.

The applicant husband brought a motion for interim spousal support and an advance on equalization to fund his litigation expenses.

The parties separated after a 30-year marriage during which the husband ran a successful art gallery owned entirely by the respondent wife.

The court determined the parties' respective incomes for support purposes, preferring the evidence of the husband's expert valuator over the wife's business consultant.

The court ordered the respondent wife to pay interim spousal support of $5,068 per month and an advance of $100,000 on the husband's expected equalization payment to cover his litigation costs.

The defendant brought a motion seeking security for costs and an order requiring the plaintiff to serve an affidavit of documents in a commercial lease dispute involving allegations of wrongful eviction and a counterclaim for rent arrears.

Before the hearing, the defendant abandoned the request for security for costs and instead sought an order requiring the plaintiff’s principals to undertake personal liability for any costs orders.

The court refused to grant that relief, holding that it had not been requested in the notice of motion, the principals were not parties to the action, and the circumstances did not justify piercing the corporate structure.

The court also found the document-production aspect of the motion premature.

The motion was dismissed and costs were awarded to the plaintiff, though reduced due to the plaintiff’s lack of transparency regarding its financial circumstances.

The appellant father appealed a child support order made at a case conference in the Ontario Court of Justice that imposed final child support based on imputed income.

The appellate court considered whether the case conference judge had jurisdiction under the Family Law Rules to make a final order where the responding party had notice only of a request for a temporary order.

While the father had failed to comply with disclosure orders and provided inconsistent financial information, the court held that the case conference judge exceeded jurisdiction by making a final order far beyond the relief requested in the conference brief.

The proper order was limited to the temporary child support amount sought in the brief.

The final order was therefore set aside and replaced with a temporary order pending further proceedings.

The defendant brought a motion seeking various relief including dismissal for delay, amendment of pleadings, issuance of a third party claim, a litigation timetable, and case management.

Following mixed success on the underlying motion, the court addressed costs.

The court found that the plaintiffs’ lawyer engaged in improper litigation conduct by misleading opposing counsel about payment of a prior costs order while secretly arranging for the funds to be garnished by a government creditor.

The court characterized the conduct as sharp practice contrary to professional obligations and held that it caused unnecessary motion costs.

Costs were awarded partly against the plaintiff corporation and partly personally against the plaintiffs’ lawyer under Rule 57.07.

Following a motion seeking to compel examinations under Rule 39.03 in aid of a contempt proceeding, the court addressed the issue of costs.

The moving parties had attempted to compel the examination of opposing counsel and several non-parties regarding a mortgage transaction allegedly breaching a prior court order.

The court found that the evidentiary steps taken were excessive, disproportionate, and primarily aimed at forcing the opposing lawyer to give evidence against his client and potentially disqualify himself.

Although the moving parties were entitled to limited costs for compelling a timetable for an affidavit, the motion to compel examination of counsel was dismissed and the responding party substantially succeeded.

Substantial indemnity costs were awarded to the responding party due to the unreasonable litigation strategy adopted by the moving parties.