N. Holmberg

The defendants brought a motion seeking security for costs from the corporate plaintiffs in an action arising from a real estate joint venture.

The plaintiffs, who had no assets in Ontario, argued they were impecunious and that their claims had merit.

The court found that the plaintiffs failed to meet the high evidentiary burden to prove impecuniosity, as they did not provide evidence of efforts to raise funds from their principals or investors.

Balancing the factors, the court ordered the plaintiffs to post $70,000 in security for costs on a partial indemnity scale up to the completion of discoveries.

The defendants successfully brought a motion under s. 137.1 of the Courts of Justice Act to dismiss the plaintiff's defamation action.

In this costs endorsement, the court considered whether to depart from the presumption of full indemnity costs under s. 137.1(7).

The court denied the plaintiff's request to file a further affidavit and found no reason to depart from the statutory presumption.

The court awarded full indemnity costs of $282,943.42 to the defendant Bent and partial indemnity costs of $30,000 to the defendant Lerners LLP.

The moving party (defendant) brought a motion under s. 137.1 of the Courts of Justice Act to dismiss the responding party's (plaintiff's) defamation action.

The action arose from an email sent by the moving party to a restricted listserv of plaintiff-side personal injury lawyers, which criticized the responding party's conduct as a medical expert in preparing executive summary reports for insurance companies.

The responding party also challenged the constitutionality of s. 137.1 under ss. 7 and 15(1) of the Charter.

The court found that the email related to a matter of public interest.

The court held that the responding party failed to show there were grounds to believe the moving party had no valid defence, as the defences of substantial justification and qualified privilege were reasonably likely to succeed.

Furthermore, the public interest in protecting the expression outweighed the public interest in permitting the proceeding to continue.

The court also dismissed the Charter challenges, finding that reputation is not a free-standing right under s. 7 and that potential defamation plaintiffs do not constitute an analogous group under s. 15(1).

The motion was granted and the action was dismissed.

The plaintiff in a defamation action brought a preliminary motion prior to the hearing of the defendants' anti-SLAPP motion under s. 137.1 of the Courts of Justice Act.

The plaintiff sought to record oral arguments, compel answers to cross-examination refusals, amend the statement of claim to add a corporate plaintiff, and file late affidavit evidence.

The court dismissed the motion in its entirety, finding that the proposed amendments would frustrate the purpose of the anti-SLAPP legislation and that there was no reasonable explanation for the late filing of evidence.