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Civil Litigation - Costs - Effect of Allegation of Fraud. Mascia v. Tri-Star Disaster Recovery Inc.
In Mascia v. Tri-Star Disaster Recovery Inc. (Div Court, 2024) the Divisional Court largely dismissed an appeal against a quantum meruit home renovation case, with a high substantial indemnity costs award.
Here the court considered a substantial indemnity costs award where the plaintiff had alleged fraud:[62] It is not our role to re-weigh the factors balanced by the trial judge in the exercise of his wide discretion. He relied on clear authority supporting a costs penalty against a party who alleges fraud and fails to prove it at trial.
[63] Moreover, the threat sent by counsel to Anthony Mascia just days before the trial commenced was reprehensible. The fraud claim so aggressively asserted could not even survive the first week of trial. Yet it was maintained for seven years and brandished as a weapon right up to the end. It deserves sanction in costs if not more. . Shannon v. Hrabovsky
In Shannon v. Hrabovsky (Ont CA, 2024) the Court of Appeal weighs unsubstantiated allegations of “false and deceitful evidence” as a factor in awarding costs to a successful respondent:[4] We are satisfied that this is an appropriate case to award enhanced costs. The appellants made serious allegations of misconduct against the respondent. They accused her of giving “false and deceitful evidence” at the application by failing to put into evidence a letter that her lawyer sent in December 2014 to the lawyer who prepared the testator’s wills. We did not accept this characterization and concluded that this letter was equally accessible to the appellants and their counsel at the time of the application, and that, in any event, it would not have affected the application judge’s finding that the respondent’s application was not limitations‑barred. Litigants who make unsubstantiated allegations of misconduct or dishonesty can expect to pay enhanced costs: see Unisys Canada Inc. v. York Three Associates Inc. (2001), 2001 CanLII 7276 (ON CA), 150 O.A.C. 49 (C.A.), at para. 15; Davies v. Clarington (Municipality) et al., 2009 ONCA 722, 100 O.R. (3d) 66, at para. 47. . 2651171 Ontario Inc. v. Brey
In 2651171 Ontario Inc. v. Brey (Ont CA, 2022) the Court of Appeal considered the role of unfounded fraud allegations on cost awards:[11] Finally, we address the respondent Brey’s submission that the appellant’s costs should be reduced because of the appellant’s alternative submission on the motions that the respondent Brey fraudulently misrepresented that the property could be used as a fourplex. We agree there should be a reduction.
[12] Regardless at what stage in the proceedings they are raised, unfounded allegations of fraud may attract serious cost consequences as a form of chastisement and a mark of the court’s disapproval because of their extraordinarily serious nature that go directly to the heart of a person’s very integrity: Bargman v. Rooney (1998), 30 C.P.C. (4th) 259 (Ont. Gen. Div.), at paras. 18-19.
[13] In the present case, the appellant did not plead fraudulent misrepresentation. Rather, the issue of fraudulent misrepresentation was raised as an alternative argument to its main contention of negligent misrepresentation. The motion judge declined to determine this issue because it was not advanced in its statement of claim. She also stated that had the claim been properly advanced, she would have dismissed it “in the absence of any credible evidence that [the respondent] Brey intentionally misled [the appellant] and other potential purchasers about the lawful use of the Property or potential exposure as a result of the renovation of the Property forty-five years earlier.”
[14] The appellant’s allegations of fraudulent misrepresentation occupied a small part of the proceedings and did not form the basis for the motion judge’s decision. Nevertheless, based on the motion judge’s reasons, they appear to have been proffered “without regard for the rule that fraud must be strictly pleaded and strictly proved”: Toronto Dominion Bank v. Leigh Instruments Ltd. (Trustee of), [1998] O.J. No. 4221 (Gen. Div.), at para. 17. Moreover, while not all unsuccessful allegations of fraud and dishonesty lead inexorably to cost consequences, where, as here, a party makes such allegations unsuccessfully “with access to information sufficient to conclude that the other party was merely negligent and neither dishonest nor fraudulent”, costs sanctions may be appropriate: Hamilton v. Open Window Bakery Ltd., 2004 SCC 9, [2004] 1 S.C.R. 303, at para. 26.
[15] As a result, we are of the view that a reduction of the appellant’s costs is appropriate as a reminder that “allegations of fraud and dishonesty are simply not to be made unless there is every reasonable likelihood that they can be proved”: Bargman, at para. 19.
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