Supreme Court Revitalizes Summary Judgment To Foster Access To Justice

In a much-anticipated decision released on January 23, 2014, Hryniak v Maudlin, 2014 SCC 7, the Supreme Court of Canada articulated a new approach to summary judgment under Rule 20 of Ontario's Rules of Civil Procedure (RRO 1990, Reg 194). The decision overrules authority from the Ontario Court of Appeal that largely restricted the availability of summary judgment to straightforward, document-driven cases. Instead, the Supreme Court characterized summary judgment as an alternative model for adjudication that is no less legitimate than a conventional trial, and should be more widely available to provide litigants with less expensive and more timely access to justice. Notably, the Supreme Court refused to specify the types of cases that will tend to be appropriate for summary judgment.