Case information

Contracts — Breach — Parties entering into Minutes of Settlement during pretrial — Applicants failing to comply with terms — Whether Court should intervene when the rule of law is completely ignored and cited cases not being mentioned in reasons of lower courts — Whether Court should intervene where the courts below failed to distinguish inessential terms from a fundamental breach of contract, resulting in injustice — Whether lower courts should have mentioned abuse of discretion in contractual performance in their reasons in light of pandemic —Whether bad faith performance of contract was an argument that was intrinsic to the behaviour of respondents — Whether clause in Minutes of Settlement was a disproportionate penalty through an in terrorem clause — Whether such inequity, misinterpretation and error of law should be rectified by the Court — Whether relief from forfeiture should be applied in circumstances of pandemic — Whether Court should revisit the use of mini-trials following the decision in Hryniak v. Mauldin, 2014 SCC 7.<br>

Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch). Please note that summaries are not provided to the Judges of the Court. They are placed on the Court file and website for information purposes only.

In February 2020, the parties entered into Minutes of Settlement at their pre-trial, pursuant to which the applicants were required to pay to the respondents $40,000 in four monthly instalments of $10,000 each between March 2 and June 2, 2020. The applicants were also required to deliver a consent to judgment in the amount of $120,000 to be held in escrow pending completion of their instalment payments at which time the consent would be returned to their counsel. The applicants also agreed to deliver a consent to the dismissal of the action without costs. The applicants failed to deliver the required consents and stopped payment on their last $10,000 instalment. The respondents brought a motion against the applicants, seeking to enforce the terms of the Minutes of Settlement.
The motion judge granted the respondents’ motion. Her decision was upheld on appeal.