Court File and Parties

Citation: Yip v. Deng, 2016 ONSC 7064 Court File No.: CV-14-518156 Date: 2016-11-14

Superior Court of Justice - Ontario

Re: Wei Chee Sui Yip, Applicant -and- Jianwei Deng and R. C. Congregation of St. John the Baptist and The Roman Catholic Congregation of St. John the Baptist, Respondents

Before: S. F. Dunphy, J.

Counsel: Chi-Kun Shi, for the Applicant Gregory Chang, for the Respondents

Heard: November 14, 2016

Case Conference Endorsement

[1] The parties appeared before me for a case conference further to my endorsement of September 16, 2016 (reported at 2016 ONSC 5834).

[2] After hearing the submissions of the parties, the following procedure has been ordered to conduct the mini-trial directed by my endorsement of September 16, 2016:

a. The applicants shall call Ms. Mabel Yip and Ms. Amy Yip, the respondents shall call Fr. Deng and Ms. Magdalen Cheung for which four witnesses the following guidelines shall apply:

i. Testimony in chief limited to approximately 20 minutes to focus primarily upon the areas where the witness’ evidence contradicts other evidence already on the record especially as regards the matters highlighted in my endorsement;

ii. Cross-examination shall be approximately 1 hour and subject to the same focus;

b. Mrs. Yip shall be examined out of court subject to the following guidelines:

i. As far as possible, her examination shall be conducted in Cantonese with the resulting transcript translated. Mr. Chang indicates that he will require an interpreter to translate his questions from English but is comfortable in receiving answers in Cantonese to be translated after the fact for the court’s benefit. This will require a court reporter comfortable with taking testimony in Cantonese and English and able to transcribe into both languages such that the resulting transcript can in turn be translated into English.

ii. Recognizing Mrs. Yip’s age, it will likely require a slightly longer period of time (eg. 30 minutes) for examination in chief and for cross-examination (eg. 90 minutes). However, the same focus on testimony in chief and cross-examination as applies to the other four witnesses is to apply to Mrs. Yip.

c. Mr. Peter Chang, Mrs. Yip’s lawyer on the transaction, shall give viva voce testimony and shall be subject to being cross-examined by each side for 30 minutes in supplement to the transcript already in evidence. Other than time, no specific limit on subject-matter or scope to be applied to either side.

d. The report of the family doctor – to this point produced only via Mr. Chang’s files – is to be properly produced as an expert report. It is not presently expected that her evidence will be needed at trial, but a proper and considered report should be filed rather than the “side door” admission of a letter as has been done to this point. I expect the parties to collaborate on obtaining this report to obviate the need for viva voce testimony. If this cannot be avoided, testimony is to be short.

e. The parties shall obtain a two day appointment before me from the Motions Office after March 2017. I have advised the parties that I will not be sitting in Civil Motions next term so they shall have to work out my availability with the Motions Office with some flexibility.

f. Facta having already been filed, I am not anticipating any further written materials from the parties prior to the hearing. Assuming time permits, short oral submissions will be received at the close of the evidence on the mini-trial. Anticipating that oral submissions will be somewhat truncated given time limitations, I will invite the parties to supplement their facta by reference to the new evidence to be heard and will give them a reasonable time frame to do so (15 days after the hearing).

[3] If further directions are needed to flesh out these directions, I may be spoken to after arranging a telephone conference through my assistant.

S. F. Dunphy, J.

Date: November 14, 2016