William Edward Charles Parker

The applicant, acting as the estate trustee, applied for a declaration under section 21.1 of the Succession Law Reform Act to validate an unsigned 2023 draft will prepared by the deceased's lawyer shortly before his death.

The court dismissed the application, holding that the draft will existed only as an electronic document, which is excluded from the curative provisions of the legislation.

Furthermore, the court found insufficient evidence that the deceased had reviewed or approved the final draft, meaning it did not represent a deliberate, fixed, and final expression of his testamentary intentions.

Consequently, the deceased's prior 2021 will remains valid.

The plaintiff, Oz Optics, alleged that former employees Jing Ru Zhang and Nai-Guang Wang, along with their daughter Chen Wang, appropriated confidential information upon their resignation and sold it.

Both the plaintiff and defendants brought motions for further and better affidavits of documents.

The court ordered the defendants to produce records relating to cash receipts for 2010-2015 and Chen Wang to provide an affidavit of documents with similar records.

The court also ordered Oz Optics to produce annual and monthly sales figures and financial statements for 2010-2015, while denying many of the defendants' broader document requests based on proportionality.

This endorsement from a Trial Management Conference outlines the procedural orders made to schedule the trial and subsequent pre-trial steps.

The trial is scheduled for October 16, 2017, for six to eight weeks.

Orders include deadlines for circulating a draft Statement of Defence, cross-examination of a witness, a further mediation, and the delivery of expert reports on solicitor negligence and damages by both the plaintiff and defendants.

A further Trial Management Conference is adjourned to April 10, 2017, to review the status.

The plaintiffs brought a motion to amend their statement of claim to add allegations that the defendants’ litigation conduct, including alleged delay in producing privileged documents, constituted a breach of fiduciary duty and warranted punitive damages.

The court applied Rule 26.01 of the Rules of Civil Procedure and the test for allowing amendments, including whether the proposed claims were tenable at law.

The court held that no fiduciary duty exists between opposing parties during the conduct of litigation in the adversarial system and that litigation conduct alone cannot constitute an independent actionable wrong supporting punitive damages.

Alleged delay in document production is addressed through costs, not substantive claims.

The proposed amendments were therefore not legally tenable and were refused, though certain limited trial questions concerning knowledge of competing intellectual property claims were permitted.

The plaintiff brought a motion seeking to transfer a Small Claims Court action to the Superior Court of Justice in order to pursue substantially higher damages.

The action originally sought damages within the Small Claims Court monetary jurisdiction, but the plaintiff later asserted losses exceeding $400,000 arising from the repossession of a leased truck and resulting business losses and health consequences.

The court considered the principles governing transfers from Small Claims Court, including the court’s inherent jurisdiction to permit a transfer where appropriate.

Relying on authorities addressing when a plaintiff may pursue the claim in its “real dimensions,” the court held that the circumstances justified a transfer despite the plaintiff’s earlier choice of forum.

The motion was granted, but costs were awarded to the defendant because the need for the motion arose from the plaintiff’s own procedural error.

Following a motion for temporary child and spousal support, the court addressed the outstanding issue of costs.

The moving party had been successful on the earlier motion, which determined the responding party’s income and ordered support accordingly.

The court found that settlement had been hindered by the responding party’s lack of disclosure.

While the successful party sought over $51,000 in costs on a full indemnity basis, the court concluded that full indemnity was not justified and fixed costs at $25,000 inclusive of disbursements and GST.

The appellant appealed a Small Claims Court decision dismissing his negligence and breach of contract claim against a home inspector.

The appellant alleged the inspector failed to identify wood rot during a pre-purchase visual inspection of a cottage.

The trial judge dismissed the claim, finding the appellant failed to prove the standard of care or a breach thereof, noting the absence of expert evidence.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, holding that the trial judge's findings were reasonable and supported by the evidence, particularly the inspector's testimony that the rot was concealed and not observable during the initial visual inspection.

The moving defendant sought to set aside a previously granted Mareva injunction obtained without notice, alleging inadequate evidence, hearsay, and failure by the plaintiffs to make full and frank disclosure.

The court examined alleged deficiencies including the presentation of SMS message data, inaccuracies in affidavit evidence, and hearsay regarding customer orders.

While the court acknowledged certain imperfections and minor inaccuracies in the evidence, it concluded that the original motion judge had sufficient admissible evidence to justify the injunction.

The court held that minor imperfections or omissions in ex parte proceedings do not automatically invalidate relief where the overall evidentiary foundation remains adequate.

The Mareva order was therefore maintained, subject to a minor agreed amendment.