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Presentation - Duties of Other Parties to Presenters. Power v. Home Trust Company
In Power v. Home Trust Company (Ont CA, 2025) the Ontario Court of Appeal allowed a motion to extend time to commence an appeal, citing the leading Enbridge Gas Distribution Inc. v. Froese (Ont CA, 2013) case.
Here the court places a duty of the corporate defendants to "provide the court and the moving parties with an explanatory statement setting out the actions and applications pending between the parties, and their current status, including whether the pleadings have been served and the state of the pleadings in each":[7] There is some confusion. The moving parties include in their materials the notice of application started by Home Trust in Hamilton bearing court file number CV-25-00089191-0000. Home Trust later provided the court with the statement of claim filed by the moving parties in Barrie with court file number CV-24-00003013-0000. McCarthy J.’s endorsement matches closer to the court file number of the moving parties’ action and bears the number, written by hand, CV-24-3013-00.
[8] Home Trust relied on the order transferring the case from Hamilton to Barrie to move to dismiss the case in Barrie, leading the motion judge to issue perfunctory reasons that did not show a complete understanding of the matters in issue. That is not surprising; I am in the same position.
[9] As is regrettably often the case with self-represented litigants, the picture they present is confused. Regrettably, in these circumstances counsel for Home Trust was not able to shed much light on the number of actions or applications pending or their status beyond saying that none had yet proceeded to judgment.
[10] Counsel and the court have certain duties to self-represented litigants. It appears that none of them were met in this case: Girao v. Cunnigham, 2020 ONCA 260, 2 C.C.L.I. (6th) 15, at paras. 149-152. See also Grand River Conservation Authority v. Ramdas, 2021 ONCA 815, 160 O.R. (3d) 348, at paras. 18-23. These duties apply here with necessary modifications.
[11] I therefore require Home Trust to provide the court and the moving parties with an explanatory statement setting out the actions and applications pending between the parties, and their current status, including whether the pleadings have been served and the state of the pleadings in each.
[12] I extend the time within which the moving parties may file a notice of appeal and require the moving parties to file a notice of appeal within 30 days of receiving Home Trust’s explanatory statement.
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