In 790668 Ontario Inc. v. D'Andrea Management Inc. (Ont CA, 2015) the Court of Appeal expressed caution about the suitability of summary judgment motions to address third party claims (the caution appears equally appropropriate wherever hearing of the primary action is required to inform the court of key facts, such as with counterclaims and crossclaims):
[11] The appellants point out that although this court noted in Hamilton, at para. 18, that summary judgment can be available in the case of third party claims, the court was cautious, citing the reasoning in Bongiardina v. York, (Regional Municipality) (2000), 2000 CanLII 5408 (ON CA), 49 O.R. (3d) 641 (C.A.), where the court said, at para. 15:
There might well be cases in which it would be inappropriate to bring a motion for summary judgment in respect of a third party claim. For example, if the third party claim could not be resolved without detailed knowledge of the factual circumstances that gave rise to the main action, a motion for summary judgment would be premature.
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