A three-member panel of the Court of Appeal today reversed a July decision of a single judge of that court. The earlier decision of Gillese J.A. was the subject of a previous posting in our blawg (“C.A. Takes Expansive View…
Note: a link to the Misko decision now appears in this post from last week. The summer languor is over and the new court decisions are coming thick and fast. We are obliged to Lawrence McRae of Bartlet & Richardes in Windsor,…
As many of our readers will know, Mr. Justice Tom Granger runs a competing litigation update service. He competes rather unfairly though; he circulates recipes, puzzles, jokes and other content, in a shameless effort to induce readers to subscribe to his…
UPDATE: This decision was reversed by a 3-member panel of the Court of Appeal on September 20, 2006. See our post. Justice Gillese of the Ontario Court of Appeal yesterday released a ruling that will be of importance to all civil…
Lis v. Lombard Insurance illustrates a common difficulty with surveillance videotape. Under Rule 30.09 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, a “document” (which would include a videotape) on which privilege has been claimed, cannot be used at trial without…
In Branco v. Ephstein, a motor vehicle case, the Divisional Court has ordered a new trial, on the ground that the trial judge did not adequately explain to the jury the onus that arises where a defence of mitigation is…
The decision of Justice Nancy Spies in Tuffhide Products v. Rhino Systems of Canada Inc. is a cautionary tale on the subject of offers to settle in multi-defendant cases. The plaintiffs had sued two defendants. Prior to trial, the plaintiffs…
In the well-known case of Sandhu v. Wellington Place Apartments, the jury awarded to the plaintiff non-pecuniary general damages of $311,000. This is the current value of the $100,000 maximum award established by the Supreme Court of Canada in the…
Although he expressed concern about “the somewhat rigid state of the existing jurisprudence”, Justice Denis Power refused to bifurcate the trial of a motor vehicle accident case. In Aghsani v. Briglio, the plaintiff was a pedestrian who had been…
In Budning v. Vinokurov et al., the plaintiff settled with three defendants. Minutes of settlement were entered into, specifying the amounts to be paid by each defendant. Two of the defendants (a law firm and a municipality) paid their contributions to…