The moving defendants sought leave under Rule 26.01 of the Rules of Civil Procedure to amend their joint statement of defence, counterclaim, crossclaim, and third party claim by delivering separate pleadings and adding additional allegations and claims.
The court reaffirmed that leave to amend should generally be granted unless non-compensable prejudice would result, but scrutinized the proposed amendments for improper pleadings, including arguments, evidence, irrelevant matters, and procedural history that should instead be addressed through motions.
Numerous proposed paragraphs were rejected for pleading evidence, lacking particularity, or raising issues relating to pre-trial disclosure.
Leave was granted in part for both moving parties to amend their pleadings and third party claims, subject to extensive limitations and corrections.
Costs of $3,000 were awarded to one set of responding defendants for part of the motion.
