SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE - ONTARIO

COURT FILE NO.: 249/14

DATE: 20150731

RE: The Estate of Cheyenne Sanata Marie Fox, Plaintiff

AND:

The Toronto Police Services Board, Attorney General of Canada, Bahram Sheibani and Linda Gheshe Shamoon, Defendant

BEFORE: B. G. MacDougall, J.

COUNSEL: Counsel, John A. Annen, for the Plaintiff

Counsel, David M. Rovan, for the Defendant

HEARD: May 21, 2015

COSTS ENDORSEMENT

[1] Cheyenne Fox, a young First Nations female in her early 20’s, met her untimely death as a result of falling from a balcony in a condo building occupied by the Defendants, Bahram Sheibani and his spouse, Linda Shamoon.

[2] The condo was not being occupied by the owners, but was rented out to relatives of the owners.

[3] Cheyenne Fox’s Estate commenced this action against these Defendants and also sued the Toronto Police Services Board and the Attorney General of Canada seeking damages of $14 million.

[4] The Plaintiff’s estate was in the process of adding another defendant; a relative of the owners, who was occupying the condo and was present at the time of Cheyenne’s death.

[5] The Estate’s claim against the owners was to a large extent based on allegations of a duty they owed as landlords/condo occupiers owners to Cheyenne. It appears that the Estate mistakenly understood that it was the Defendant, Bahram Sheibani, who was present and had interacted with Cheyenne in the condo.

[6] The owners brought their Applications for Summary Judgment seeking an order dismissing the Estate’s action against them. The owners were successful in their Application and are now seeking costs on a substantial indemnity basis.

[7] The owners had delivered a formal written offer several months prior to the hearing of the Application offering to waive costs if the action was dismissed against them. The offer was not accepted by the Plaintiff estate.

[8] On the material before me, prior to this Application being heard, the Plaintiff’s estate and the estate’s counsel had received information that the owner, Sheibani, was not the male who was in the condo at the time of Cheyenne’s death and that it was a relative whose mother was the tenant of the condo.

[9] Even with this knowledge, the Plaintiff continued unsuccessfully to attempt to argue that the owner had some liability for Cheyenne’s death.

[10] The Plaintiff did have the benefit of the testimony from the owners as a result of their cross-examinations on their affidavits.

[11] Taking into account the unfortunate circumstances of the deceased’s death, I fix these Defendant’s costs at $5500.00 plus disbursement of $601.49.

B. G. MacDougall, J.

Date: July 31, 2015