Does the Court have jurisdiction to stay a claim?

Adjudicator O’Hara in The Roofing Connection v. Select Projects Ltd 2011 NSSM 20 accepted that this court did have the jurisdiction to stay a claim in such circumstances. While he did not expressly locate that power in s.2 he did recognize “other principles at play,” one of them being “the right of the party in the position of the Select [i.e. the defendant] to have its claim adjudicated without having to abandon some part of it:” para.25. He concluded that where the counterclaim had ‘an air of reality,” and involved facts “relating to both claims [that] arise [out of] exactly the same contractual relationship and exactly the same performance of work under the contractual relationship” that it would be appropriate to have them heard together—and hence, to stay the claim: see paras.23, 26 and 33.