R. Hammond

The plaintiff contractor and defendant owners disputed which of two quotes formed the basis of their construction contract for a medical clinic build-out.

The court held that the plaintiff's December 2018 quote constituted a valid offer that was accepted by the defendants through an agent who had ostensible authority to bind the plaintiff.

The court found that the subsequent January 2019 quote was never accepted and lacked consideration, and therefore did not amend the contract.

The court also determined that the contract was solely between the plaintiff and the defendants' corporate entity, not the individual defendants.

The defendants brought a motion to compel answers to questions refused during the cross-examination of the plaintiff's principal on her affidavit, in advance of a pending security for costs motion.

The court granted leave for the refusals motion, finding it necessary to ensure procedural rights.

The court ordered the plaintiff to answer questions regarding its cessation of operations and the principal's relationship with a former employee, as these matters were raised in the affidavit.

However, the court dismissed the requests to compel answers regarding the plaintiff's assets, liabilities, banking records, the defendants' bill of costs, and human rights claims, finding them irrelevant or improper.

The plaintiff, a general contractor, commenced an action against the defendant mechanical subcontractor regarding a construction project.

The defendant had previously commenced a construction lien action which was referred to a Master for trial.

The plaintiff brought a motion on consent to refer this action to the same Master to be tried with or immediately following the lien action, to avoid multiplicity of proceedings and inconsistent findings.

The court granted the consent order.

In complex environmental remediation and construction lien litigation, the moving party sought production of numerous documents withheld on claims of solicitor‑client privilege, litigation privilege, and relevance.

The court reviewed over 1,600 documents including materials from a consulting engineer, internal environmental steering committee meetings, and documents produced in related environmental contamination litigation.

The court held that the party asserting privilege bears the burden of proving it on a balance of probabilities and rejected broad claims that entire meetings or communications involving counsel were privileged merely because legal issues might arise.

Applying the functional approach to third‑party communications and the dominant purpose test for litigation privilege, the court determined that many communications primarily concerned business or factual remediation matters and were not privileged.

Documents relating to the related environmental action were found relevant to the counterclaim and ordered produced, subject to further submissions regarding specific documents identified in a schedule.

In a complex construction lien and environmental remediation dispute, the parties brought cross-motions to compel answers to questions refused during examinations for discovery.

The owner sought answers from the remediation contractor regarding its prior experience and sampling protocols.

The contractor sought information and documents from the owner regarding the historical environmental condition of the property and its 1981 purchase agreement.

Applying the relevance test informed by proportionality, the court ordered the contractor to answer questions about its experience and subcontractor control, and ordered the owner to produce historical environmental information and the 1981 purchase documents, as they were relevant to the allegations of negligence and failure to mitigate.