Nicholas T. Hooge

The plaintiff, Jinhang Feng, brought a motion for leave to amend the statement of claim to add alternative claims for monetary damages and unjust enrichment, in addition to the original claim for specific performance of an agreement of purchase and sale.

The defendant, Han Yun Liu, opposed the motion, arguing that the proposed amendments constituted a new cause of action and were therefore statute-barred.

The court granted leave to amend, finding that the proposed amendments did not introduce a new cause of action but rather sought alternative relief based on the same facts already pleaded.

The court also awarded substantial indemnity costs to the plaintiff, finding that the plaintiff had obtained an order more favourable than a prior offer to settle the motion.

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.

Consumer appeal concerning the enforceability of a mandatory mediation-arbitration clause and class action waiver in a mobile phone services contract.

The Court held that the competence-competence principle generally requires arbitral jurisdictional challenges to be decided first by the arbitrator, but the statutory interpretation issue raised a pure question of law that the court could decide.

Interpreting ss. 3 and 172 of British Columbia's consumer protection legislation textually, contextually and purposively, the majority held that claims for declaratory and injunctive relief under s. 172 were non-waivable and could proceed in Supreme Court notwithstanding the arbitration clause.

Other statutory, repealed statutory, and common law claims remained subject to a stay in favour of arbitration, and the class action waiver fell with the invalid portion of the arbitration clause.