Court File and Parties

CITATION: Sokoloff v. Bateriwala, 2020 ONSC 2429

COURT FILE NO.: DC 19/575

DATE: 2020-04-20

SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE - DIVISIONAL COURT - ONTARIO

RE: Sokoloff v. Bateriwala

BEFORE: D.L. Corbett J.

COUNSEL: Jack Parsekhian and Juliano Pichini, for the Appellant Sokoloff Caroline Ursulak, for the Respondent Sanjay Bateriwala Vladimira Ivanov, for the Respondent Surksha Assessment Centre Inc. Ted Kalnins for the Respondents other than Sokoloff and Surksha

CASE MANAGEMENT ENDORSEMENT

[1] This appeal from the final order of Master Jolley (2019 ONSC 5442) shall proceed on May 19, 2020, for an estimated 3.0 hours, before a single judge of the Divisional Court.

[2] The hearing will be conducted as a video conference. ZOOM technology will be used. Further details about the videoconferencing process will follow in a subsequent endorsement.

[3] Neither counsel nor the court will gown for the hearing. Instead, business attire is required for anyone with a speaking role in the hearing. All parties must ensure that they participate in the videoconference from appropriate surroundings and that they (and the Court) will not be interrupted or disturbed during the hearing.

[4] The Sokoloff Appellants counsel shall arrange for a password-protected electronic drop box from which materials may be downloaded. All parties shall arrange to have their materials uploaded to the drop box by April 27, 2020, and counsel for the Sokoloff Appellants shall provide the court with the URL and password by April 30, 2020.

(a) All documents other than factums shall be uploaded to the drop box in pdf format.

(b) Documents should be labelled in a manner that identifies them clearly for the motion judge so that it is not necessary to open the document to understand what it is. Pages should be numbered sequentially within each pdf. If this is not practical, given the current state of the documents, then individual documents should be uploaded to the drop box in pdf form, so that each document is clearly labelled, enabling the court to find documents quickly during the course of the hearing.

(c) Factums are to be filed in Word version. Where possible, the factums should contain hyperlinks for authorities and, if possible, hyperlinks to a "Factum Compendium", described below.

(d) Books of authorities containing the full text of authorities should not be uploaded to the drop box. However, citations to cases in the factums are to provide, if possible, a hyperlink to the online database version of cases. The only exceptions to this principle are authorities not available on the online database, such as excerpts from textbooks, foreign law, or Canadian decisions not reported on the online database: these should be collected in a small brief of unreported authorities and filed electronically.

(e) Parties may file a "Factum Compendium" containing single pages or brief portions of cases cited, and brief portions of evidence from the record referenced in the factum, hyperlinked from the factum. Where portions of cases are included in a compendium, the title of proceedings and headnote should be included as well. Where portions of the record are included in a Factum Compendium, the first page of the document and identification of where it may be found in the record should also be provided.

(f) All parties are permitted to (but are not required to) file the following additional documents (in addition to documents permitted under the Rules):

(i) A version of their previously filed factum with hyperlinks to cases and/or evidence;

(ii) A Factum Compendium, described above; and

(iii) A compendium for oral argument, containing excerpts of evidence and authorities to which counsel will refer in oral argument.

(g) All parties shall file a counsel sheet setting out the name(s) of counsel with speaking roles in the hearing, and the estimated time for counsel's submissions.

(h) All documents for use in the hearing are to be uploaded to the drop box by April 27, 2020, except the compendiums for oral argument, which shall be uploaded by May 15, 2020.

[5] Of the three hours allotted for oral argument, the appellant shall have 1.5 hours (including time reserved for reply), and the respondents shall have 1.5 hours, divided among the respondents as they shall agree in advance. The court believes that 2.0 hours should be sufficient to argue the entire appeal, but has allotted 3.0 hours to take account of the videoconferencing format that may be unfamiliar to some.

[6] Counsel are reminded that the court expects counsel to try to agree on costs in advance of the hearing, and, failing agreement, to have costs outlines and bills of costs ready to provide to the court by email during the hearing or immediately upon its conclusion, as the court may direct.

[7] If counsel believe there are points from the case management conference that are not reflected in this endorsement, they should so advise the court by email as soon as they can.

[8] The court has endorsed its fiat on this endorsement this day; the unsigned version distributed to the parties today has the authority and effect of the signed version, a copy of which will be provided to the parties in due course after the suspension of ordinary court operations is lifted.

D.L. Corbett J.

Date: April 20, 2020