Usman Bhatti

The plaintiff municipality brought a motion under Rule 30.10 for the production of financial records held by third-party financial institutions relating to the defendants, alleging a complex procurement fraud scheme.

The responding defendants opposed the production of personal banking records but consented to the production of certain corporate records.

The court dismissed the contested portions of the motion, finding that the plaintiff failed to establish that the requested documents were relevant to a material issue or that it would be unfair to proceed to discovery without them, applying the Ballard factors.

The self-represented plaintiff brought a motion seeking over $100,000 in costs for an entire proceeding commenced in 2004.

The matter had previously been referred to arbitration, where the plaintiff was awarded $20,000 in costs, and a subsequent appeal of the arbitration award resulted in a further $2,500 costs award to the plaintiff.

The court dismissed the current motion, finding it lacked jurisdiction as the issue of costs had already been decided and the motion was effectively an attempt to appeal the court's previous costs award without leave.