This five-judge appeal reconsidered the common law governing non-disclosure of partial settlement agreements in multi-party civil litigation.
The court held that the prior rule mandating an automatic finding of abuse of process and an automatic stay, without proof of prejudice or regard to proportionality, was wrongly decided and should be overruled.
The proper approach requires a contextual and discretionary abuse of process analysis focused on unfairness, prejudice, oppression, harm to the administration of justice, and a proportionate remedy, with r. 49.14 of the Rules of Civil Procedure reinforcing that framework.
Applying that approach, the court allowed two appeals and remitted those matters, while dismissing two others where the record was sufficient to determine the result.
