When will a motion for summary judgment be granted?

The case conference judge referred to the “culture shift” set out in Hryniak v. Mauldin, 2014 SCC 7, to the effect that summary judgment ought to be considered a legitimate alternative means to adjudicating and resolving legal disputes, as elaborated by Justice Myers in Anjum et al. v. Doe et al., 2015 ONSC 5501. The case conference judge held that “[t]here is no ‘right’ to a trial in civil matters” and that a summary judgment process was an equally legitimate procedure. He decided it was unlikely that many facts would be in dispute and that proportionality favored permitting the defendants to bring their motions for summary judgment. He based this decision on the following factors: (a) the criminal conviction against the shooter has been secured and the material from the second criminal trial was available; (b) video evidence of the shooting was available; (c) there was only one shooter and the shooting incident was relatively brief in time; (d) the question of liability was likely to be determined by “legal issues” informed by expert opinion and not primarily by differences of fact and/or credibility; (e) the question of liability was distinct from that of damages and the damages aspect could end up taking up the majority of trial time; (f) the relative amount of time for a summary judgment motion was estimated to be six days (although the plaintiffs submitted it would be longer) in comparison to the estimated trial time of 48 days; (g) if no liability was found against the moving party defendants all four actions would be dismissed against the moving parties and a trial would be unnecessary; this was not a case of partial summary judgment or, to the extent that it was, proceeding with the motions was still warranted.

The case conference judge went on to hold that the existence of a jury notice did not preclude the defendants from proceeding with summary judgment motions on the basis there was no genuine issue requiring trial. He distinguished Abuajina v. Haval, 2015 ONSC 7938, which the plaintiffs relied on for the importance of the jury’s fact-finding role, on the basis that Abuajina was a routine personal injury action driven by facts and likely to settle before trial, whereas the present actions were not routine and liability was likely to be determined by discrete legal concepts such as foreseeability, standard of care, and causation.