Court of Appeal for Ontario

Date: June 20, 2017 Docket: C63276

Judges: Epstein, Hourigan and Paciocco JJ.A.

Between

Daniel Gerard Heffernan Plaintiff/Appellant

and

The Knights of Columbus, Kevin Daudlin, William Country, Charles Maurer, Peter Lemon, Joe Salini and The Ontario Knights of Columbus Corporation Defendants/Respondents

Counsel

Philip Horgan, for the appellant

Julia Lefebvre, for the respondents

Heard and released orally: June 20, 2017

On appeal from: the order of Justice G.M. Mulligan of the Superior Court of Justice, dated December 21, 2016.

Reasons for Decision

[1] This is an appeal from the order of the motion judge enforcing a settlement of this action between the appellant and the respondents Kevin Daudlin, William Country, Peter Lemon, Joe Salini, and the Ontario Knights of Columbus Corporation (the "Ontario Respondents").

[2] The appellant sued the Ontario Respondents and two related American parties as a consequence of his suspension from the Knights of Columbus, a charitable fraternal benefits organization. The parties then engaged in settlement discussions.

[3] The motion judge found that the appellant and the Ontario Respondents entered into a binding settlement agreement to resolve the litigation. The appellant submits that he erred in so finding, arguing that there was only an agreement in principle to settle the action and that the agreement was not finalized by the deadline contemplated by the parties – April 22, 2016, being the day of the commencement of a Knights of Columbus convention.

[4] We are not persuaded by these submissions that the order of the motion judge should be overturned.

[5] In our view, there was ample evidence supporting a conclusion that the parties had reached a settlement agreement. The essential particulars of the agreement had been agreed upon and settlement monies had been provided by the Ontario Respondents to their lawyer. Furthermore, the form of the release that the appellant's counsel requested to be included in any agreement had already been executed by some of the Ontario Respondents before the appellant purported to terminate the agreement on April 22, 2016.

[6] In our view, there was no deadline for completion of the terms of the settlement in any of the settlement documents or the correspondence among counsel. We agree with the observation of the motion judge at para. 29 of his reasons that, had the April 22, 2016 deadline been a critical component of the settlement, the appellant could have insisted on its inclusion in the terms of the agreement. The appellant did not, and, accordingly, there was no basis for him to resile from the agreement based on a failure to meet this artificial deadline.

[7] The appeal is dismissed. The Ontario Respondents are entitled to their costs of the appeal payable by the appellant. We fix those costs at the agreed upon sum of $20,000, inclusive of fees, disbursements, and taxes.

"Gloria Epstein J.A."

"C.W. Hourigan J.A."

"David M. Paciocco J.A."