Costs

I’ve come across a couple of decisions recently that make it even more challenging for an “Elgin Street hack” (to paraphrase John Mortimer) to figure out the law of costs. My attention was drawn to the first one by Debra…

In a decision rendered today, the Court of Appeal has made it clear that partial indemnity costs should not be awarded in an amount that is equivalent to substantial indemnity. The case is 790668 Ontario Inc. v. D’Andrea Management Inc., 2015…

A recent post commented on the dichotomy in the approaches followed by Ontario courts in fixing costs. Some use an objective approach (in which the Rules Committee’s “Information for the Profession” is the starting point and the actual hourly rate has…

I noticed recently that Justice Frederick L. Myers gave a decision in which he betrayed some unhappiness about so often having to adjudicate issues of costs. He made it clear that counsel should be able to settle costs and that if…

In TMS Lighting Ltd. v. KJS Transport Inc., Mr. Justice David Price made some comments about fixing partial indemnity costs that, I think, are noteworthy. He held unequivocally that the correct approach, at least in the first instance, is an objective…

In Huber v. Way, 2014 ONSC 6535 (CanLII), Mr Justice Patrick J. Flynn was dealing with costs of a simplified procedure case in which, to his dismay, the trial had lasted eight days. He had given judgment to the plaintiff for…

UPDATE: Just a few days after the decision in Geographic Resources was released, Regional Senior Justice Charles T. Hackland has handed down his costs ruling in the widely-publicized case of Guergis v. Novak et al.  Justice Hackland too endorsed the Mantella principle (and…

Worth noting: Justice Kevin W. Whitaker has held, in Moore v. CHRY Community, 2012 ONSC 5122 (CanLII), that for purposes of awarding costs, actions tried under simplified procedure occupy a position between Small Claims Court trials and trials held under ordinary…