Legal Blog

Setting Down Delay

Tarion v. Dunhill Development 2019 Ont SCJ

The plaintiff brought a motion under Rule 48.14, just before the five-year deadline, for an extension to set the matter down for trial. The Master refused to grant the extension because (i) the plaintiff was not able to account for 3½ years of the 5 years of delay and (ii) did not adduce sufficient evidence to rebut the presumption that the defendant would be prejudiced if there were an extension. Although the plaintiff noted that its engineering firm was still active, it did not address whether the engineering witness were still available nor did it reference the evidence of the contractors who had performed the remedial work.

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