R. Bell

The defendant appealed a Master's order requiring it to either take physical possession of 2,966 allegedly damaged vehicles or pay $10,000 per day in storage costs to preserve them as evidence.

The plaintiff, who claimed $175 million in damages after the vehicles were exposed to severe weather, intended to destroy them.

The Superior Court allowed the appeal, finding the Master erred in law by applying a test that required the defendant to assert an ownership claim to the property.

The Court held that the plaintiff has a prima facie obligation to preserve the subject matter of the litigation and must bear the costs of preservation pending trial.

The Acuity defendants moved for summary judgment and sought to exclude the plaintiff's expert evidence from Vincent Rochon regarding the origin and cause of a warehouse fire.

The defendants argued Rochon was not qualified to opine on electrical code/CSA standards, lacked independence and impartiality due to his prior involvement with the insurer's sister company (REI) and the initial site investigation, showed bias, and presented an unreliable "novel science" theory (ricocheting quartz fragments).

The court found Rochon qualified, willing, and able to fulfill his duty as an expert, and that his ricochet theory was not "novel science" but an application of existing scientific principles.

The motion to exclude Rochon's evidence was dismissed, with the court noting that concerns about the investigation's shortcomings or the plausibility of Rochon's theory could inform the weight of the evidence at the summary judgment motion or trial.

In an aviation insurance dispute arising from an aircraft crash, the defendants sought production of documents from the Transportation Safety Board (TSB) under Rule 30.10 of the Rules of Civil Procedure and provisions of the Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board Act.

The court considered whether statutory privileges over cockpit voice recordings, statements to investigators, and representations made regarding draft TSB reports could be overridden.

Applying the statutory balancing tests, the court ordered production of the cockpit voice recorder recordings and certain factual documents where the public interest in the proper administration of justice outweighed the privilege.

Statements given to investigators for aviation safety purposes were largely protected, and representations regarding the TSB draft report remained absolutely privileged.

The flight data recorder information was ordered produced as it was not covered by statutory privilege.

The moving party sought leave to add two entities as respondents to an application challenging the validity of a municipal by-law authorizing financial arrangements related to a film studio project.

The proposed respondents argued that the limitation period for adding parties had expired and that they were neither proper nor necessary parties to the threshold issue concerning the by-law’s validity.

The court held that the proposed entities had no role in the enactment or validity of the by-law and would only potentially be relevant if the application succeeded and issues of repayment or accounting arose.

The court further found that the moving party had actual or constructive knowledge of the entities’ involvement well before the expiry of the limitation period and could not rely on discoverability.

The motion to add the parties was dismissed.

The moving party sought leave to add two entities as respondents to an application challenging the validity of a municipal by-law alleged to constitute illegal bonusing.

The proposed parties argued the claim was out of time and that they were not proper or necessary parties to the threshold issue concerning the validity of the by-law.

The court held that the proposed entities were not necessary to determine the legality of the by-law, which primarily concerned the municipality and an existing municipal corporation.

In any event, the limitation period to add them had expired, and the moving party could not rely on discoverability because public records and earlier correspondence put it on notice of the transfer of interests.

The motion to add the parties was therefore dismissed.