Judge Does Not Mince Words When Counsel Fail To Follow Simple Instructions

Originally published on Slaw.

In a very brief decision, Justice Lemon of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice cut right to the point when he asked for cost submissions of no more than three pages and ended up with much more from both sides.

Justice Lemon stated that neither costs "submission is of assistance to me. When I ask for no more than three pages, I expect to get no more than three pages. When I ask for costs submissions, I expect to get a Bill of Costs in readable form. I do not expect to get a badly copied, small print version of the client's bill. When I get a submission that may reduce costs to zero I do not expect to get submissions and authorities that amount to 'there is a certain je-ne-sais-quoi quality to the nature of a public interest litigant.'"