CITATION: Beach v. Zigelstein 2026 ONSC 2317

COURT FILE NO.: CV-15-525111

DATE: May 1, 2026

SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE - ONTARIO

RE: Rosemary Beach v. David Zigelstein and Jay Leider and Lloyd Beach;

BEFORE: ASSOCIATE JUSTICE C. WIEBE

COUNSEL: Rosemary Beach, self-represented;

Antonios T. Antoniou for Jay Leider;

Jeffrey Kukla for David Zigelstein;

DECISION: April 17, 2026.

COSTS DECISION

ADDENDUM

[1] On April 17, 2026, having received written submissions on the costs of the motion and action from Messrs. Leider and Zigelstein but none from Ms. Beach and Mr. Beach, I rendered my Costs Decision. I waited for two months from the Februry 20, 2026 deadline for Ms. Beach’s responding written costs submissions. I received nothing from her in this regard by email, and nothing from her in this regard was uploaded. I awarded Mr. Zigelstein $50,000 for the costs of the motion and the action, and Mr. Leider $35,000 for the costs of the motion and the action, all to be paid by Ms. Beach in sixty days from April 17, 2026.

[2] Then, on April 21, 2026, I received a letter from Lou Brezezinski advising that he is a lawyer who was just retained by Ms. Beach in this matter. In the letter, Mr. Brezezinski advised that Ms. Beach had indeed prepared responding written costs submissions in time, which submissions he enclosed. He advised that Ms. Beach had not uploaded or emailed these submissions due to difficulties she encountered with the court. He asked that I review these written costs submissions and reconsider my Costs Decision in the circumstances. By email on April 23, 2026 I asked for the positions of Messrs. Zigelstein, Leider and Beach on this request. They either did not object or took no position. Therefore, I decided to reconsider my Costs Decision in light of Ms. Beach’s responding written costs submissions.

[3] By email on April 24, 2026, in fairness to the defendants, I gave the defendants up to and including April 28, 2026 to provide a one-page response to Ms. Beach’s written costs submissions. No one did. Therefore, I make my reconsideration based solely on Ms. Beach’s responding written costs submissions dated February 20, 2026.

[4] Ms. Beach states three positions. First, she argues that she was forced to bring the motion “to rescue this action,” that she had no reasonable expectation to pay costs given this imperative, and that it would not be fair and reasonable to saddle her with costs as a result.

[5] I do not agree. Ms. Beach did have a choice. She could have decided not to bring the motion. The Registrar’s order of August 2, 2024 was an order dismissing the action “for delay.” That meant that Ms. Beach should have examined the history of this proceeding and the inordinate delay associated with it along with the governing law to assess the merits of this motion before she brought it. Had she done so and not brought the motion, it is an open question, based on the evidence, as to whether the defendants would have themselves gone to the trouble of moving for costs. After all, neither of the defendants took steps in that regard after the Registrar’s dismissal order. It was Ms. Beach who took the next step 3 ½ months later by asking for a consent to a reinstatement order and then by bringing this motion. Having decided to bring the motion, Ms. Beach must live with the risk of an adverse costs order in the event of a loss; not only the risk of paying costs of the motion, but the costs of the action, as it was dismissed. Under section 131 of the Courts of Justice Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. C43, the court always retains the right to award “costs of and incidental to a proceeding or a step in the proceeding.” There is strong authority for the proposition that unequivocally successful parties, such as Messrs. Zigelstein and Leider, are entitled to costs.

[6] Second, Ms. Beach argues that the defendants’ inaction contributed to the delay that resulted in the defeat of her motion, and that this undermines the justification for their claim for costs. She asserts essentially that Messrs. Zigelstein and Leider were the authors of the prejudice they suffered due to the delay and that they do not deserve costs.

[7] In my view, this is a re-argument of the motion itself. In my Reasons for Decision I stated that I was not prepared to reinstitute the action on this ground as it was incumbent on Ms. Beach after the removal order of July 19, 2019 to either serve a notice of intention to act in person or hire a lawyer and to do so in a timely way, all as clearly stated in the removal order. She did neither of these things at any time. In addition, she did nothing to move the action forward, for years. In the circumstances, I found that it was not unreasonable for Messrs. Leider and Zigelstein to conclude, as they said they did, that Ms. Beach had abandoned this action. I am not prepared to reconsider my Reasons for Decision in my reconsideration of my Costs Decision. I would only add the following point: this inaction by the defendants bolsters my earlier point that the defendants would probably have left the issue of costs alone had Ms. Beach not brought this motion.

[8] Third, Ms. Beach argues that, by virtue of the fact that she is a self-represented party, the lawyers for the defendants and the defendants themselves owed her a “duty” to warn her of the effects of Rule 48.14, of its suspension during the pandemic, and of its reinstitution by practice direction in May, 2024. She implies that the defendants and their lawyers should also have moved for a status hearing or consented to a reinstatement order. She implies that this should cause the court to deny the defendants their claim for costs.

[9] I do not accept this position. Mr. Leider was the lawyer for Mr. Zigelstein at all times, not Ms. Beach. That was confirmed by Mr. Beach in his pleading. Messrs. Antoniou, Cantor and Kukla were at all times the lawyers for Messrs. Zigelstein and Leider, not Ms. Beach. What Ms. Beach argues here is that these lawyers and Mr. Zigelstein were obliged to act against their own interests and, in the case of the lawyers, against the interests of their clients to assist Ms. Beach in preserving her much-delayed action against them and their clients, an action that after all contained no counterclaim and unsubstantiated allegations of fraud and conspiracy. This position is unacceptable.

[10] Ms. Beach refers in her footnotes to authorities concerning self-represented litigants. These are the court decisions in Girao v. Cunningham, 2020 ONCA 260 and Pintao v. Johns, 2017 SCC 23, 2017 S.C.C. 23. There are also references to two documents: Statement of Principals on Self-Represented Litigants and Accused Persons Adopted by the Canadian Judicial Council and the Law Society of Ontario document, Self-Represented Parties. The two court decisions and the Canadian Judicial Council document focus on what the court should do concerning self-represented litigants, which is not relevant to Ms. Beach’s position. The Law Society document is relevant. I have examined it and there is no reference in that document to an obligation on lawyers dealing with self-represented parties to do what Ms. Beach alleges the defendants should have done to assist her in avoiding the consequences of Rule 48.14. This is the case as long as the lawyers gave Ms. Beach no reason to believe they represented her. I reiterate there is no evidence any of the defendants and the lawyers gave Ms. Beach at any time reason to believe they represented her.

[11] In conclusion, for these reasons, I have decided to reaffirm my Costs Decision with one small exception. I herewith order that the awarded costs be paid in sixty (60) days from today, May 1, 2026.

DATE: May 1, 2026 _____________________________

ASSOCIATE JUSTICE C. WIEBE