While The Kluwer Mediation Blog is aimed at an international audience and often deals with issues of transcendent import to those interested in the mediation process (like Bill Marsh’s recent inspiring post on Leadership) I can’t help but comment on recent Ontario decision that will be of interest to the mediation community here, and perhaps…

Let me climb off my usual soap box this month and focus on more mundane matters primarily of interest to mediators (and lawyers) in my jurisdiction. A recent decision of the Ontario Superior Court illuminates the approach a judge will take when a party calls into question the enforceability of their settlement agreement. Generally, the…

The recent cost decision of Justice Graeme Mew in Canfield v. Brockville Ontario Speedway, 2018 ONSC 3288 (CanLII) provides an instructive review of the principles the Court will consider when weighing the cost consequences to an unsuccessful party of unreasonably refusing to participate in a mediation. The case involved whether an automobile race track was…

The recent Ontario Superior Court decision of Healy J. in Southlake Regional Health Centre v. Beswick Group Properties touches on a number of issues arising from settlement at mediation. Briefly, this was a landlord and tenant dispute relating to a Medical Arts Building and other development lands. The full factual background can be read by…

Greetings from the heart of the Polar Vortex! Yes, it’s been a brutally cold and snowy winter here in Ontario, Canada, but now, in late February, the lengthening days and (relatively) warmer temperatures remind me of that point in a mediation when it seems that all hope of resolution has forever frozen over and yet,…

Should the conduct of a party in mediation be taken into account in setting cost consequences once the dispute has been adjudicated? An insurer has been “spanked” to the tune of $60,000 by an Ontario Court for failure to participate in a mediation in “any meaningful sense”. The cost decision of Mr. Justice Ramsay in…

The Civil Justice system in Ontario is broken; badly broken. Not a week goes by without another report decrying the sad state of affairs in our Courts. Consider the article from the most recent Law Times entitled, “Lawyers frustrated as motion delays hit 7 months”. The articles quotes Roger Oatley, one of the deans of the…

As Ella Fitzgerald used to sing, Summertime and the livin’ is easy. Your faithful Canadian correspondent knows you are craving mediation-related reading to help you while away those lazy, crazy-hazy days of summer. Four recent Canadian judicial decisions should fill the bill. Supreme Court of Canada encourages Pierringer Agreements. In June the Supreme Court of…