Legal Blog

Lawyers’ Negligence & Third Party Claims

Tisi v. Raby 2018 Ont SCJ

An agreement of purchase and sale was not completed. The parties applied to the court for a determination as to who was responsible. The court held for the vendor because, it said, the parties had not fully agreed on the agreements terms. The purchaser sued her real estate agents, blaming them for improperly handling the agreement. The agents commenced a third party action against the purchaser’s litigation lawyer, claiming that the lawyers improperly handled the litigation and that, had they not done so, the purchaser would have been successful in her application. The court struck the third party action. It held that the wrong done to the purchaser flowed from the formation, or not, of the agreement, not the purchaser’s attempt to mitigate her damages by way of the application. Anything done by the lawyers could have been claimed against the purchaser by way of defence. The lawyers owed no duty of care to the agents for events that occurred after the initial wrong.

Written by Jonathan Speigel, the founding partner of Speigel Nichols Fox LLP, leads the litigation and construction practices.