Rachel Younan

This decision addresses the costs of a motion brought by the defendants to strike, stay, or dismiss a tort action, which was dismissed by the court.

The plaintiff sought costs on a substantial indemnity basis, while the defendants requested partial indemnity or no costs, arguing for divided success.

The court awarded the plaintiff partial indemnity costs of $36,665.22, all-inclusive, finding no divided success and deeming the plaintiff's costs reasonable.

The plaintiff commenced a wrongful dismissal action against her former employer in 2019.

In 2022, she commenced a separate tort action against the employer and a co-worker, alleging intentional infliction of mental distress, intrusion upon seclusion, and the novel torts of harassment and stalking, based on the same factual footprint.

The defendants moved to strike the novel torts and to stay or dismiss the 2022 action as an abuse of process or duplicative proceeding.

The court declined to strike the novel torts, finding it was not plain and obvious they would fail.

The court also declined to stay the 2022 action, finding no abuse of process, but struck the 2022 statement of claim for pleading irregularities with leave to amend, and ordered the two actions consolidated.