Fridays With Rogers Partners

Our articling students did a great job this morning at our muffin meeting!

Ankita Abraham addressed the decision in Maria-Antony v. Ivaschenko, 2019 ONSC 4731. The defendants brought a motion for leave to conduct a second psychiatric assessment of the plaintiff.

The plaintiff attended a defence psychiatry assessment in 2015. The plaintiff’s treating psychiatrist delivered several reports after the defence assessment. The plaintiff’s psychiatrist stated that the plaintiff’s depressive symptoms escalated in the summer of 2017.

The defence expert indicated that he would need to re-assess the plaintiff in order to comment on the reports of the plaintiff’s psychiatrist.

Master McGraw ruled in favour of the defendants, permitting the defence expert to conduct a one hour in-person assessment of the plaintiff, along with a written assessment.

Matthew Umbrio discussed the case of Sirron Systems Incorporated v. Parsons Inc., 2019 ONSC 4697. The defendant brought a motion to set aside a default judgment.

The plaintiff’s lawyer provided the defendant’s in-house counsel with a single warning that default judgment would be obtained if a defence was not provided by a specified deadline.

Although there were further communications between plaintiff’s counsel and the defendant’s in-house counsel, default judgment was obtained without further notice or warning.

Master Josefo found this to be “inexplicable”. He said that at least one further clear warning was necessary. He stated that courtesy and civility, rather than abusing procedural weaponry, is required.

The default judgment was set aside, with costs to the defendant.