Posts Categorized: court civil procedure

The Issue: the defendant burns your cheek by pushing her lit cigarette into your face, then pleads guilty to the criminal charge. Can that defendant later argue, in your civil lawsuit for damages against her, that her actions were only an ‘accident’ and not deliberate?

As often happens, most people simply couldn’t dream up and write a fiction story as outrageous as some cases which run through our court system.

In the recent case of Bonadeo v Woods, 2013 ONSC 7559 (CanLII), two woman at a party got into a physical altercation on New Year’s Eve.… Continue Reading

George A. Bougadis of Bougadis, Chang LLP Barristers, recently argued and was successfully granted Leave to Appeal to the Divisional Court of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice by Justice Di Tomaso in: Stamatopoulos v. Harris, 2013 ONSC 7844 (CanLII). Justice Di Tomaso also applied and adopted the recent reserve Supreme Court of Canada Judgment (re: PerringerAgreements) in Sable Offshore Energy Inc. v. Ameron International Corp., 2013 SCC 37 (CanLII)that was available to Justice Brown during her deliberations and reserve Judgment, but which is not mentioned in her decision denying our client’s appeal of the Order of Master Dash requiring our client to disclose our client’s partially redacted $2.4M Mary Carter Agreement to the non-subscribing Defendant prior to Trial.… Continue Reading

The Issue: does agreeing to a Trial prevent the defendant from seeking motion relief for further defence medicals or other issues?

The Problem: To keep files moving forward, it is not uncommon for the plaintiff solicitor to pass the Trial Record immediately after Discoveries are completed. The trial certification form is then made available by the Registry a few months later, which is completed by both parties and filed with the Court.

Given the lengthy wait times for Trial dates, it is not uncommon in Toronto for counsel to set the matter down for relatively straightforward matters and to estimate how many experts each side will call at Trial – even if all those experts have not yet been retained.… Continue Reading

A quick note of Mr. Justice Brown’s recent Endorsement on a motion for costs related to the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act – Exposoft Solutions Inc. (Re), 2013 ONSC 5798. I do not practice in this area but I couldn’t help but notice that the start of His Honour’s Reasons simply did not look very promising to either party:

I. A motion which should never have been: variation of a BIA sale approval order

[1] This was a motion which should never have been.… Continue Reading

The Problem

It is no secret that civil lawsuits in Ontario proceed quite slowly.

One of the many interim steps involves arguments between parties which arise from the Examination for Discovery process.  For example, one party requests information from one party (i.e. if you were hurt in this accident, disclose your personal health records from before this accident so I can verify your health condition) and the other party refuses.

To solve such a problem, you have to book a court motion in order to argue the issue before a Master or Judge. … Continue Reading