Pradeep Chand

The defendant paralegal, Eric Sabbah, brought a motion to strike and dismiss claims brought by the plaintiff, Utilebill Credit Corporation.

The plaintiff alleged various torts, including conversion, unlawful interference with economic interests, inducing breach of contract, injurious falsehood, and statutory violations, stemming from Mr. Sabbah's actions in assisting residential homeowners to cancel HVAC equipment rental contracts with the plaintiff.

The court dismissed all claims against Mr. Sabbah, except for the claim of conspiracy, for which the plaintiff was ordered to provide further particulars of the alleged unlawful means.

The court emphasized the protection of solicitor-client privilege and the impropriety of suing opposing counsel for advice given to clients.

The appellant, Tharani Holdings Inc., appealed the dismissal of its application challenging the administration of a condominium corporation (MTCC 812) and its directors.

The original application alleged numerous technical breaches of the Condominium Act and regulations, seeking remedies such as director removal, inspector appointment, and the oppression remedy.

The application judge dismissed the claims, finding no evidence of substantively harmful conduct.

On appeal, Tharani Holdings Inc. argued that the application judge showed reasonable apprehension of bias and failed to grant warranted remedies.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no merit to the bias claim and upholding the application judge's discretion to refuse remedies for technical breaches in the absence of actual harm or prejudice.

The applicant, a condominium unit owner, brought an application seeking various orders against the condominium corporation and its directors, including compliance with the Condominium Act, invalidation of board elections, appointment of an inspector, and damages.

The applicant alleged numerous technical breaches of the Act and regulations, as well as mismanagement.

The court found that the alleged breaches were largely formalistic errors that caused no substantive prejudice or harm.

The court dismissed the application, emphasizing that technical breaches without demonstrated prejudice do not warrant the remedies sought, and declined to award damages or appoint an inspector due to lack of evidence of financial impropriety.

This endorsement addresses compliance with a previous court order regarding rent payments and premises vacation.

The applicant alleged the respondent breached the order by contacting subtenants and sought an injunction.

The respondent claimed the applicant owed additional rent and credited subtenant payments received.

The court reaffirmed the terms of the prior endorsement, requiring the applicant to pay rent as due (less subtenant payments received by the respondent) and stating that failure to pay would release the respondent from their undertaking not to remove the applicant.

The court declined to hear the injunction request due to the lack of a formal motion and factum, noting potential issues with establishing irreparable harm.

Costs were reserved.

The plaintiffs brought a motion for a Mareva injunction and Certificates of Pending Litigation against the defendants, alleging they perpetrated a Ponzi scheme involving mortgage and securities fraud.

The court found a strong prima facie case of fraud, oppression, and conspiracy, noting that tens of millions of dollars were raised without proper compliance and were unaccounted for.

The court inferred a strong risk of dissipation of assets based on the defendants' conduct, including the listing of a $4 million house and suspicious property transfers.

The motion for the Mareva injunction and CPLs was granted.

The plaintiff, Grasshopper Solar Corp., brought a motion for default judgment seeking $44,992.53 in damages due to the defendants' failure to complete the registration process for a solar energy lease assignment.

The court found a lack of evidence for a valid assignment from the original homeowners to an intermediate party, Joseph Lauzon, and noted that Lauzon's failure to sign the assignment invalidated it under the Statute of Frauds.

Consequently, the motion for default judgment was dismissed due to the lack of clarity in the evidence.

The plaintiffs moved for an interim order for the recovery of possession of personal property (software and hardware).

The defendants cross-moved for a stay of the action, alleging the plaintiffs were in default of corporate filing requirements under the Corporations Information Act and the Ontario Business Corporations Act.

The court dismissed the defendants' cross-motion, finding the corporate filing default was inadvertent, corrected, and did not deceive the public, thus granting leave for the plaintiffs to proceed.

The court then granted the plaintiffs' motion for interim recovery of property, finding substantial grounds for the plaintiffs' ownership/entitlement, unlawful detention by the defendants, and that the balance of convenience favoured the plaintiffs.

No security was required.

Following a motion to strike portions of a statement of claim, the court determined the appropriate costs payable to individually named defendants whose claims had been struck as an abuse of process.

The plaintiff had asserted a $10 million claim against individual employees and directors of corporate defendants without adequately pleading separate acts or interests beyond their corporate roles.

The individual defendants sought substantial indemnity costs, arguing the claims constituted tactical harassment.

The court found the claims against the individuals lacked proper particulars but concluded the circumstances did not justify elevated costs.

Partial indemnity costs were instead fixed at reduced amounts reflecting duplication of work with corporate defendants’ counsel.

The defendants moved under Rules 21 and 25 of the Rules of Civil Procedure to strike the plaintiff’s statement of claim alleging civil conspiracy, unlawful interference with economic interests, trespass, and breach of confidence arising from alleged GPS tracking of the plaintiff’s service vehicles to obtain customer information.

The court held that the pleadings for civil conspiracy lacked the required material facts and particulars but granted leave to amend.

The claim for intentional interference with economic interests was struck without leave to amend because the pleadings failed to allege unlawful means directed at a third party as required by the Supreme Court’s formulation of the tort.

Allegations against individual corporate officers were struck as an abuse of process for failing to plead independent tortious conduct.

Claims for trespass to chattels and breach of confidence were allowed to proceed, while the trespass to land claim was struck with leave to amend.