Civil Litigation - Defendant - SCJ

The defendants brought a motion for contempt against the plaintiff, alleging the plaintiff breached interim and interlocutory injunctions prohibiting the use, removal, or modification of conduit supplied and installed by the defendants.

The court applied the three-part test for civil contempt and found beyond a reasonable doubt that the orders were clear, the plaintiff had knowledge of them, and the plaintiff intentionally breached the orders by connecting fibre optic cable in the prohibited conduit.

The plaintiff was found in contempt, with the penalty phase to follow.

The applicants sought indemnity under a professional liability 'claims made' policy.

The insurers denied coverage based on an exclusion clause for claims arising from wrongful acts committed prior to the policy period if the insured's Chief Legal Counsel knew or could have reasonably foreseen that such acts would result in a claim.

The court found that prior to the policy commencing, the applicants' Chief Legal Counsel had sufficient knowledge of alleged wrongful acts by an employee to reasonably foresee that a claim would be brought.

The application was dismissed and costs were awarded to the respondents.

The self-represented plaintiff sought to note the defendant university in default and obtain default judgment, despite the defendant having counsel and a pending motion to strike the claim.

After the court deferred scheduling the plaintiff's motion, the plaintiff brought a further motion to set aside the deferral.

The court, on its own initiative under Rule 2.1.02, stayed the plaintiff's motion and issued a notice considering its dismissal as frivolous or an abuse of process, noting that default judgment is inappropriate when a defendant is actively participating.

The applicant, an elderly woman in long-term care, sought a writ of possession to evict her nephew from her home so it could be sold to fund her care.

The nephew argued he had an oral agreement granting him a life interest in the property in exchange for helping his aunt and paying her $50,000, which he claimed was part consideration.

The court found the $50,000 was repayment of a prior debt and that the nephew's actions did not constitute part performance unequivocally referable to an agreement for an interest in land.

The court rejected the nephew's claims of proprietary estoppel and granted the writ of possession, staying the eviction for three months to allow him to relocate.

The applicant sought the appointment of an arbitrator under a construction agreement.

The respondent cross-applied for a declaration that the arbitration was barred by the Limitations Act, 2002, and that procedural preconditions were not met.

The court granted the application to appoint an arbitrator and dismissed the cross-application, holding that under the competence-competence principle and the 'hands-off' approach to arbitration, the arbitrator should determine their own jurisdiction and the limitation period defence.

Following an order enforcing the plaintiff's mortgage against the proceeds of sale of a mortgaged property, the plaintiff sought costs of $33,342.15 on a substantial indemnity basis as provided in the mortgage.

The defendants argued the plaintiff was not entitled to costs for a prior motion to set aside a default judgment that was settled and deemed abandoned.

The court held that under Rule 37.09(3), the plaintiff was entitled to costs of the abandoned motion.

The court found the claimed costs were proportionate and reasonable, awarding the full amount sought.

The respondent requested a correction to a costs endorsement, noting the judge had mistakenly written the fee total instead of the all-inclusive total of fees, taxes, and disbursements.

The applicants objected, arguing the endorsement was clear and the issue should be raised on cross-appeal since an appeal had already been commenced.

The court corrected the transposition error, amending the costs award to the intended all-inclusive amount of $2,288,314.57, noting the Court of Appeal would prefer the corrected outcome over a cross-appeal about a typo.

The plaintiff mortgagee brought a motion for payment of funds held in court from the sale of the defendants' home.

The defendants opposed, arguing the plaintiff's claim merged in a default judgment, the mortgage was released by an agreement to take keys to a separate condominium, and the plaintiff breached duties as a mortgagee in possession.

The court rejected the defendants' arguments, finding no requirement for a monetary judgment before enforcing security, the alleged agreement could not bind the proceeds in court given a prior consent order, and claims of improvident realization were not properly before the court.

The motion was granted.

The applicant vendor sought an urgent order at a case conference to compel a real estate broker to release a $740,000 deposit to facilitate the closing of a real estate transaction, despite the broker's claim to a commission trust.

The court declined to make the order as the broker had not been formally served and the trust issues required further consideration.

The court also ordered the second mortgagee to discharge its mortgage upon payment of the undisputed amount and payment into court of $97,000 to secure disputed fees, interest, and costs.

Following the granting of interlocutory injunctions against the respondents, the applicant sought costs on a substantial indemnity basis.

The court found that the respondents engaged in deliberate and high-handed conduct by attempting to unilaterally terminate commercial leases and evict the applicant without legal basis, aiming to frustrate the court proceedings.

The court exercised its discretion to award costs immediately rather than reserving them to the trial judge, fixing costs at $58,000 and $45,000 payable forthwith on a substantial indemnity scale.

Parkland Corporation sought an interlocutory injunction to prevent SRAA Inc. and 1064110 Ontario Ltd. from unilaterally terminating their gas station leases and subleases to re-lease the properties to a competitor selling Esso brand fuel.

The respondents argued the agreements were essentially fuel supply contracts and that they were operating at a loss.

The court found that the respondents deliberately breached their contracts and that Parkland would suffer irreparable harm from the loss of control over the sites.

The court granted the interlocutory injunctions, enforcing the leases and the negative covenants in the subleases pending a final determination.

The plaintiffs sought to schedule an urgent motion for an interlocutory injunction to compel the closure of schools to in-person learning in York Region due to COVID-19, prior to commencing a formal proceeding.

Several unions and school boards sought to intervene.

The court scheduled the injunction motion conditionally, requiring the plaintiffs to formally commence an action or application first.

The court declined to schedule the intervention motions on an urgent basis, finding it would be unfair to the responding parties given the tight timeline.

The applicant successfully applied to enforce an arbitration award and sought costs on a partial indemnity basis.

The self-represented respondent opposed the costs and sought her own costs, raising unlitigated grievances regarding the underlying business dispute.

The court found the applicant's costs claim of $4,968 to be reasonable and proportionate, rejecting the respondent's attempt to re-litigate the merits.

Costs were awarded to the applicant in the amount of $4,968.

The defendants moved to discharge a Certificate of Pending Litigation (CPL) obtained by the plaintiffs without notice.

The dispute involved a family hardware business, with the plaintiff son claiming his late father promised him the business and a 50% interest in the land.

The court found that the plaintiffs egregiously breached their duty under Rule 39.01(6) to make full and fair disclosure of all material facts when obtaining the ex parte order.

The plaintiffs omitted key facts about negotiations, the plaintiff's departure to start a competing business, and relied on inadmissible double hearsay regarding a purported sale of the property.

The court set aside the CPL and declined to maintain it under the Dhunna factors, concluding this was primarily a damages case.

Costs of $69,000 were awarded to the defendants.

The defendants requested a review of the plaintiffs' statement of claim under Rule 2.1 of the Rules of Civil Procedure.

The plaintiffs' action sought damages against various entities involved in a prior child protection proceeding that resulted in their children becoming Crown wards.

The court found that the action was an impermissible attempt to relitigate issues already decided in the child protection proceeding.

The court dismissed the action in its entirety as an abuse of process.

The defendants, RBC Insurance Agency Ltd. and Aviva General Insurance Company, sought to schedule a motion to stay an individual action and remove plaintiff's counsel due to an alleged conflict of interest, prior to the certification motion for a proposed class action.

The plaintiff, Kabir Singh, opposed this scheduling, arguing these issues should be determined at the certification hearing.

The court, applying section 12 of the Class Proceedings Act, 1992, found that hearing the conflict and stay issues before certification would ensure a fair and expeditious determination, preventing potential delays and issues with adequacy of representation if a conflict were found later.

The court ordered the defendants' motion to be heard before the certification motion.

This case conference endorsement addressed three scheduling matters in ongoing class action litigation: an upcoming motion regarding costs ordered by the Supreme Court of Canada, a motion to revise the certification order, and the discovery plan and schedule.

The court established a specific timeline for the costs motion and examinations for discovery, and scheduled a further case conference to review progress on the certification amendment motion.

The defendant landlord moved for security for costs against the plaintiff tenant under Rule 56.01(1)(d) and (e), alleging insufficient assets and a frivolous claim.

The plaintiff argued that its financial difficulties stemmed from the defendant's alleged breach of a lease amending agreement, which involved delayed renovations and illegal distress of chattels.

The court found the defendant met the low threshold for demonstrating insufficient assets but declined to order security for costs, exercising its discretion based on the principle that an order should not prevent a meritorious claim from proceeding, especially when the plaintiff's impecuniosity is allegedly caused by the defendant's actions.

The motion for security for costs was dismissed, and the defendant was ordered to pay the plaintiff's costs.

The defendants in a solicitor negligence action brought a motion to remove the plaintiff's counsel of record, arguing that counsel would inevitably be required to testify as a witness regarding advice he gave the plaintiff in the underlying real estate litigation.

The court applied the factors from Essa (Township) v. Guergis and concluded that counsel's evidence regarding the plaintiff's decision to proceed with the underlying action was highly relevant to the defendants' defence that the plaintiff's losses were caused by his current counsel's advice.

The court ordered the removal of the plaintiff's counsel and directed the production of counsel's file and accounts from the underlying action based on a deemed waiver of solicitor-client privilege.

The plaintiff sought leave under s. 138.8 of the Securities Act and certification under the Class Proceedings Act to bring a class action against a mining company for secondary market misrepresentation.

The plaintiff alleged that the company's public disclosures regarding mineral production and grade levels were false, as purportedly revealed by a subsequent technical report and anonymous short-seller internet postings.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that the plaintiff failed to show a reasonable possibility of success at trial because the defendants' uncontroverted expert evidence explained that the discrepancies between the reports were due to different reporting parameters, not misrepresentations.