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ARTICLE · 19 MAY 2025

No More Automatic Stay: Five Judge Panel Overrules Handley Estate

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The Ontario Court of Appeal has overturned its 2018 Handley Estate decision, which had imposed automatic stays on parties who failed to immediately disclose partial settlement agreements...

CanadaLitigation, Mediation & Arbitration
Laura M. Wagner
Laura M. Wagner
Roya Shidfar
Roya Shidfar
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On Monday May 19, a five-judge panel of the Court of Appeal for Ontario overruled Handley Estate v. DTE Industries Limited, 2018 ONCA 324, the decision that, for the last eight years, had imposed an automatic stay of the proceeding of any party who failed to immediately disclose a partial settlement agreement that "entirely changed the litigation landscape." In its place, the Court has restored a discretionary abuse-of-process framework and confirmed that the new Rule 49.14 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, now governing partial settlement agreements, operates consistently with that common law approach.

The problem with the rule in Handley Estate

Under Handley Estate and the cases that followed it, a partial settlement that was found to have altered the litigation landscape had to be disclosed immediately. Failure to do so was automatically treated as an abuse of process, and the only available remedy to judges was a stay of proceedings. The Court of Appeal noted that although the

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