Date: 20060327

Docket: T-697-02

Citation: 2006 FC 386

Ottawa, Ontario, the 27^th day of March 2006

Present: The Honourable Mr. Justice de Montigny

 

BETWEEN:

OSMOSE-PENTOX INC.

Applicant

and

 

SOCIÉTÉ LAURENTIDE INC.

Respondent

 

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT AND JUDGMENT

 

[1]               The applicant filed a motion in this Court to appeal from an order made by Prothonotary Richard Morneau on December 14, 2005, as authorized by rule 51 of the Federal Courts Rules, 1998. In his decision, the prothonotary denied the applicant’s motion for confidentiality, thereby making available (when his order became final) the applicant’s motion records of August 29 and October 11, 2005. Concurrently, he also ordered the severance of the proceeding so that questions of liability would be decided first, and the question of relief dealt with subsequently in a separate proceeding. Finally, he ordered the applicant to pay costs in the amount of $3,500.

 

BACKGROUND TO PROCEEDINGS

[2]               This dispute arose when the applicant, on May 7, 2002, served on the respondent the originating document of an action in which it sought a permanent injunction and damages or profits made by the respondent from the illegal use allegedly made by it of the registered trademark “Conservator”. That was a long time ago. Since then, many proceedings have been commenced on either side, so much that the examinations for discovery have not yet been completed and the resulting documents have not all been sent.

 

[3]               For the purposes of this appeal, it is not necessary to review individually all of the orders made by various judges of this Court and by the prothonotary assigned by the Chief Justice to assist the judge designated to manage the proceeding. I will simply recall the principal points in the case, in so far as they are relevant to understanding the issues raised before me.

 

[4]               It should first be recalled that my colleague Mr. Justice Beaudry granted the applicant’s motion for an interlocutory injunction and an interim injunction on January 31, 2003. A motion to review this order was denied by Mr. Justice Beaudry on March 4, 2003 and a motion to stay dismissed by the Court of Appeal on March 11, 2003. In addition, the respondent on May 2, 2003 discontinued the appeal it had filed from the order.

 

[5]               On February 21, 2003, Madam Justice Johanne Gauthier made an order denying the respondent’s motion to sever the proceedings, denying the applicant’s motion for judgment by default and a permanent injunction, and ordering that the respondent’s affidavit of documents and the applicant’s amended affidavit of documents be exchanged on or before April 25, 2003. As to the motion to sever proceedings, Madam Justice Gauthier wrote:

 

[translation]

 

As several substantive issues raised by the application are also relevant to the assessment of damages, it is not clear that severance of the proceeding would result in the better administration of justice.

 

 

[6]               On April 25, 2003, the applicant’s representative and that of the respondent exchanged their amended affidavits of documents. Pursuant to a motion by the applicant for a more accurate or complete affidavit of documents, on July 16, 2003, Prothonotary Morneau ordered that an amended affidavit of documents be filed by the respondent. This order was challenged by the applicant, which would have liked to obtain a greater number of documents; but Mr. Justice Blais of this Court, and subsequently the Court of Appeal, dismissed the applicant’s appeal in decisions rendered on September 5, 2003 and September 20, 2004 respectively.

 

[7]               On January 10, 2005, counsel for the applicant proceeded with the first examination of the respondent’s representative. Many objections were raised at that time which would be resolved by Prothonotary Morneau in an order made on April 25, 2005.

 

[8]               On May 9, 2005, the respondent made an offer of settlement to the applicant, which was rejected. Then, on May 19, 2005, the respondent filed a motion to compel mediation, which was also denied by the Court on May 24, 2005.

 

[9]               The examination of the respondent’s representative accordingly proceeded on May 25, 2005. At that time, the applicant was given a number of documents by counsel for the respondent, the communication of which had been ordered by the prothonotary in his order of April 25, 2005. Then, on June 30, 2005, the examination for discovery of the respondent’s representative began. As both examinations gave rise to a number of objections, on August 5, 2005, the prothonotary directed that the motions to decide these objections would be heard jointly at a special hearing on October 25, 2005. Despite these objections, the respondent agreed to give the applicant a voluminous data bank, containing approximately 10,000 pages of confidential and privileged commercial information relating to its activities, on the sole condition that the applicant undertake to respect its confidentiality; that offer is still being considered by the applicant.

 

[10]           On August 29, 2005, the applicant filed in the Court an ex parte Anton Piller type motion, whereby the applicant sought not only the relief typical of such a motion but also a further remedy, the nature of which the respondent still does not know. This motion was denied by Mr. Justice Lemieux on September 9. It is important to quote here the order by Mr. Justice Lemieux in full:

 

[translation]

 

THE COURT ORDERS THAT:

 

1.         The ex parte motion dated August 29, 2005 by the applicant Osmose-Pentox Inc. seeking an Anton Piller order giving access to certain documents of Société Laurentide Inc. in this matter is denied without costs.

 

2.         In my opinion, this motion is premature as the examination of Mr. Buisson on the filing of the documents in the possession of Société Laurentide Inc. (the respondent) is to continue (see order by Prothonotary Morneau dated July 21, 2005). The applicant’s concerns about the documents filed by the respondent could be addressed more extensively in that context.

 

3.            I am also of the opinion that this motion does not harmonize well with the Federal Court of Appeal’s judgment on September 20, 2004 and the subsequent directions by Prothonotary Morneau.

 

[11]           On learning that his order had not been sent to all the parties pursuant to rule 395 of the Rules of this Court, Mr. Justice Lemieux on October 6, 2005 ordered the Registry to send the order to the respondent without delay. As soon as it learned of this second order by Mr. Justice Lemieux, the applicant hastily sent a letter to the Registry asking for an interim order of confidentiality, which was granted by Prothonotary Morneau on the same day with a direction to file a formal motion record no later than October 12, 2005. The record was indeed filed ex parte on October 12. Further, the applicant on October 11, 2005 filed another ex parte motion seeking the other remedy already sought in the Anton Piller type motion.

 

PROTHONOTARY’S DECISION

[12]           In a lengthy and carefully reasoned decision delivered on December 14, 2005, Prothonotary Morneau denied all the remedies sought by the applicant in its motion for confidentiality. He also denied the applicant’s motion of October 11, 2005, and further ordered the severance of the proceeding.

 

[13]           Dealing first with the motion for confidentiality, the prothonotary said that, in his opinion, this motion was tardy since the applicant should have sought this relief in its motion of August 29: but for the Registry’s failure to communicate Mr. Justice Lemieux’s order of September 9, 2005 to both parties, the applicant would have learned of it at that time. He also rejected the applicant’s arguments that its Anton Piller motion should be kept confidential in order to preserve its right to file a new similar motion in future and to preserve its surprise effect: the prothonotary considered that such a concern was not justified as the Court had not accepted the allegations of bad faith made against the respondent, and any new motion should be based on new facts. Finally, he ruled that the motion for confidentiality did not meet the two-part test developed by the Supreme Court of Canada in Sierra Club of Canada v. Canada (Minister of Finance), [2002] 2 S.C.R. 522.

 

[14]           On the applicant’s motion seeking the other remedy, the prothonotary first observed that it [translation] “burdened the Court record, was another ex parte proceeding and required the Court to go to great lengths not to reveal before the final decision the matters which the applicant had for the moment drawn to the Court’s attention ex parte”. Although in his order of September 9 Mr. Justice Lemieux did not rule expressly on this remedy, which was sought in the alternative in the Anton Piller motion filed on August 29, 2005, Prothonotary Morneau considered that he was certainly aware of it and had impliedly dismissed it. He further noted that the applicant had filed no motion pursuant to paragraph 397(1)(b) of the Rules asking Mr. Justice Lemieux to reconsider his order.

 

[15]           Finally, pursuant to rules 47 and 107 of the Federal Courts Rules, the prothonotary, of his own initiative, ordered that the proceeding be severed so that issues of liability (that is, the issue of infringement of the applicant’s trademark at stake and of the invalidity of that mark) could be decided first, and the issue of relief (profits or damages) could be decided in a separate proceeding if the Court ruled that the mark at stake was valid and had been infringed. Therefore, he relieved the parties of their respective obligations to communicate any documents and information relating to the issue of relief before the completion of the trial on the issues of liability.

 

[16]           The prothonotary so ruled after having applied the test developed in Illva Saronno S.p.A. v. Privilegiata Fabbrica Maraschino “Excelsior”, [1999] 1 F.C. 146. Noting that the calculation of profits always proved to be a lengthy and costly exercise, and that the parties had become bogged down even at the stage of examinations for discovery on this question, the prothonotary considered that it would be more appropriate to deal immediately with issues of liability and the injunction sought. This appeared to him to be all the more necessary as the applicant had already been granted an interlocutory injunction more than three years before (since January 2003). The prothonotary said he was aware of the fact that Madam Justice Gauthier had already denied a motion to this effect in her order of February 21, 2003; but in his opinion that order, made at a relatively early stage of the proceeding and before it fell under special management, could not preclude his own review of the situation now that he had been seized of this matter. Relying on the case law (Remo Imports Ltd. v. Jaguar Canada Ltd., 2003 FCT 74; Sawridge Band v. Canada, [2002] 2 F.C. 346 (F.C.A.)), therefore, he considered that the broad discretion enjoyed by the manager of a proceeding to move a case forward authorized him to vary the order made by Madam Justice Gauthier and to order that the proceeding be severed.

 

[17]           The prothonotary awarded costs to the respondent in the amount of $3,500, based on paragraphs 400(3)(a), (c), (g) and (i) as well as subsection 400(4) of the Rules.

 

ANALYSIS

[18]           It is well settled that interlocutory decisions made by a prothonotary, and in particular those he makes as the manager of a specially-managed proceeding, should not be lightly revisited. A judge sitting in review cannot exercise his discretion in the place of the prothonotary unless the question to be decided is vital to the final issue of the case (and this is not the case), or the prothonotary’s decision was so clearly wrong that it was based on a wrong principle or misapprehension of the facts (Canada v. Aqua-Gem Investments Ltd., [1993] 2 F.C. 425, at paragraph 95 (F.C.A.); Merck & Co. v. Apotex Inc., 2003 FCA 488, (2003) 30 C.P.R. (4th) 40, at page 53 (F.C.A.); Z.I. Pompey Industrie v. Ecu-Line N.V., 2003 SCC 27, [2003] 1 S.C.R. 450, at page 461).

 

[19]           It is also beyond question that a case manager, whether a judge or a prothonotary, must enjoy a very broad discretion to ensure that the case will move forward promptly and in an orderly manner. This is the very spirit of the rules governing specially-managed proceedings, and in particular rule 385. In this respect, Prothonotary Morneau quite correctly cited the comments made by Mr. Justice Gibson in Remo Imports Ltd. v. Jaguar Canada Ltd., supra; it is appropriate to quote them hereunder:

 

[11]     In Sawridge Band v. Canada, [2002] 2 F.C. 346 (C.A.), Justice Rothstein, for the Court, wrote at paragraph 11 of the Court’s reasons:

 

We would take this opportunity to state the position of this Court on appeals from orders of case management judges. Case management judges must be given latitude to manage cases. This Court will interfere only in the clearest case of a misuse of judicial discretion.

 

 

[12]     In further reasons issued contemporaneously with the reasons from which the foregoing quote is extracted, (2001), 283 N.R. 112 (F.C.A.), Justice Rothstein, once again for the Court, and by reference to the reasons from which the foregoing quotation is drawn, wrote at paragraph [4]:

 

Questions of joinder and severance are quintessential subject matters of case management. Such questions are to be decided by the exercise of discretion by a case management judge familiar with the proceedings. On appeal, a court would interfere with such decisions only where there is demonstrated a clear misuse of judicial discretion. . . .  [citation omitted]

 

 

[13]    I extended the same principles to the role of case management prothonotaries and to the relationship between case management prothonotaries and judges of the Trial Division of this Court sitting on appeal from their decisions (see: Microfibres Inc. v. Annabel Canada Inc. (2001), 16 C.P.R. (4th) 12 (F.C.T.D.)). At pages 16 and 17 of the cited report of my reasons, I wrote:

 

Case Management prothonotaries, like Case Management judges, are familiar with the proceedings that they are managing to a degree that a trial judge, sitting on appeal from a prothonotary’s discretionary decision in such a context, usually cannot be.

 

While some may have regarded such an “extension” as superfluous since “case management judge” is defined in rule 2 of the Federal Courts Rules, 1998, SOR/98-106, to include a case management prothonotary, I did not share that view since Justice Rothstein was writing for the Court of Appeal and appeals from case management prothonotaries are taken to a judge of the Trial Division and not to the Court of Appeal.

 

 

[14]      Before me, counsel for the Defendants urged that Prothonotary Lafrenière’s refusal of permission to add Mr. Bassal as a defendant to their Counterclaim amounted to a decision vital to the final issue of the case and further, was clearly wrong in that the Prothonotary had fallen into error of law or so decided based upon a misapprehension of the facts. By contrast, counsel for the Plaintiff urged that the decision under appeal was not vital to a final issue of the case and that Prothonotary Lafrenière’s decision that is at issue could not be said to be clearly wrong. Rather, counsel for the Plaintiff urged it was a discretionary decision of a Prothonotary acting in his role as a case manager and should not be disturbed. I adopt the position of counsel for the Plaintiff.

 

 

[20]           Based on these principles, it does not seem warranted for this Court to intervene and vary the manner in which the prothonotary disposed of the motion for confidentiality and of the motion of October 11, 2005 seeking the other remedy. As to the motion for confidentiality in particular, it seems to the Court that the prothonotary could properly find that the silence of Mr. Justice Lemieux as to confidentiality in his order of September 9, 2005 flowed from his denial of the applicant’s motion of August 29, 2005.

 

[21]           Although Mr. Justice Lemieux qualified this motion as “premature”, he nevertheless decided to deny it. That is the real gist of his order. If he had intended to reserve the applicant’s rights and remedies and allow it to submit its motion at a later date, he could have made a ruling to this effect and adjourned it sine die. That is clearly not what he chose to do. It is difficult to see how a motion which has been denied could be stayed and filed again subsequently. On the contrary, any new motion should be based on new facts if it is not to be denied on the ground of res judicata.

 

[22]           If the applicant wished to keep the very existence of this motion confidential, it should have pleaded accordingly within the motion itself. Not only did it not do this, but it also did not ask for this when the order was made on September 9, 2005. It was not until after having learned of the second order by Mr. Justice Lemieux on October 6, 2005, in which he directed the Registry to communicate his original order to the respondent, that this motion for confidentiality was filed. To say the least, it was not unreasonable for the prothonotary to rule that the motion for confidentiality was tardy.

 

[23]           Finally, the Court is not persuaded that the prothonotary misapplied the two-part test set out in Sierra Club, supra. It is true that an Anton Piller type order is an extraordinary remedy, and that the secrecy surrounding it is necessary for it to be effective. However, once the motion seeking that remedy is denied (and not stayed), there is no longer any basis for preventing the party affected from being apprised of it. Moreover, rule 395 provides that the Court’s order and the reasons accompanying it, if applicable, should be sent to the parties. This means that the respondent will inevitably become aware of the motion and possibly of part of its content, at least indirectly, when he is apprised of the order and the reasons thereof. Would it be logical not to disclose the motion on which the order is based?

 

[24]           We should never lose sight of the fact that confidentiality is an exception to the rule that judicial proceedings and argument should be public, and therefore must be given a restrictive interpretation. The wish to preserve the element of surprise with respect to certain evidence that may be required in connection with a subsequent Anton Piller motion does not appear to the Court to be a sufficient reason for overriding a litigant’s right to a fair trial and is hardly consistent with the rules laid down by the Supreme Court in Sierra Club, supra. In addition, in dismissing the applicant’s motion, Mr. Justice Lemieux held that the applicant’s concerns regarding the documents filed by the respondent could be addressed more extensively in the examinations for discovery and did not warrant the granting of an Anton Piller injunction, which is an exceptional remedy.

 

[25]           It appears to the Court that the prothonotary properly decided to deny the motion seeking another remedy brought ex parte on October 11, 2005. Although Mr. Justice Lemieux did not expressly refer in his order of September 9, 2005 to the remedy sought in the alternative by the applicant by its motion of September 29, 2005, I have to assume that he denied it, as with the motion seeking an Anton Piller injunction. Prothonotary Morneau ruled that it would be [translation] “presumptuous” to think that the Court did not apprise itself of the record as a whole and of the remedies sought by the applicant before dismissing its motion: I see nothing obviously wrong with that ruling, which on the contrary appears to be based on common sense.

 

[26]           The applicant did submit that several of the arguments made in support of the other remedy sought related to specific and individual facts which could not be resolved by proceeding with the examinations, as Mr. Justice Lemieux suggested for the motion seeking an Anton Piller injunction. In the applicant’s view, this would mean that Mr. Justice Lemieux denied the other motion without giving reasons, which would amount to an oversight on his part, even incompetence, and this is inconceivable in view of the specific points he mentioned in denying the Anton Piller motion.

 

[27]           Though attractive, this argument does not persuade the Court. It often happens that motions are denied without reasons, and that cannot be treated as an oversight, still less as incompetence. One could speculate indefinitely about the reasons which prompted Mr. Justice Lemieux not to explain why he was denying the other motion. In fact, it is entirely possible he did not think it necessary to explain himself because he regarded it as quite secondary to the motion seeking an Anton Piller injunction, or because he felt that such reasons were improper and inappropriate in an ex parte proceeding of such an exceptional nature. However, at the end of the day, regardless of his reasons, Mr. Justice Lemieux denied the motion in its entirety, after having reviewed the record, and there is no basis for this Court to believe that his ruling applied only to that part of the motion seeking an Anton Piller injunction. The fact that the applicant may have submitted a draft order to the Court referring only to the relief ordinarily sought in a motion seeking an Anton Piller injunction does not make any difference. As to the fact that the applicant did not make use of paragraph 397(1)(b) of the Federal Courts Rules so that the Court could rule on the other remedy sought, I am of the view that the prothonotary could reasonably infer from this that the applicant did not regard it as an oversight. The applicant may now well argue that the order by Mr. Justice Lemieux was completely in accordance with its expectations and the lack of any reference to the other remedy sought was not an oversight: the fact remains that the best way of preserving its rights was to draw the attention of Mr. Justice Lemieux.

 

[28]           In view of all the foregoing, I am of the view that the prothonotary did not err in ruling that the motion filed by the applicant on August 29, 2005 was denied by Mr. Justice Lemieux as a whole. Therefore, it could not again file a motion on October 11, 2005 seeking the same remedy and based on the same facts. The matter was res judicata and the prothonotary was entirely justified in denying this new motion.

 

[29]           What is the situation with the order for severance?  In his decision of December 14 last, the prothonotary decided to order severance of the proceeding proprio motu [translation] “so that issues of liability (that is, the issue of infringement of the applicant’s trademark at stake and of the invalidity of that mark), could be decided first, and the issue of relief (profits or damages) could be decided in a separate proceeding if the Court ruled that the mark at issue was valid and had been infringed”. The issue that arises is not so much whether the decision was appropriate in view of the context but rather whether he had jurisdiction to make such an order.

 

[30]           In his reasons, the prothonotary relied on the tests developed in Illva Saronno S.p.A. v. Privilegiata Fabbrica Maraschino “Excelsior”, supra, to rule that, in the circumstances it was warranted to order that the proceeding be severed pursuant to rules 47(1) and 107. In particular, he relied on the fact that the awarding of the profits made by the respondent as damages was always a lengthy and costly exercise, even in the most favourable circumstances. In this case, such an exercise seemed likely to drag on forever and take on unreasonable proportions, as a result of the parties’ actions. What is more, it seemed important to him that the Court rule forthwith on the issues of liability, in view of the interlocutory injunction which had been granted to the applicant in January 2003. In view of these new circumstances which Madam Justice Gauthier could not foresee when she made her order, the prothonotary considered that severance was “more likely than not to result in the just, expeditious and least expensive determination of the proceeding on its merits”, to use the language in Saronno, supra (at paragraph 14).

 

[31]           It goes without saying that I would find no difficulty in upholding the prothonotary’s decision, but for the fact that it varies a prior decision by a judge. As I have already mentioned, prothonotaries must be given very broad latitude in managing proceedings assigned to them. This is especially true when, as herein, the case is complex and the proceedings are increasing in number and likely to be lengthy. In such situations, a prothonotary who has been assigned to manage the proceeding is much more familiar with the case and the parties than a judge hearing an appeal from one of his or her decisions. Ultimately, this is the raison d’être of case management, largely conducted by prothonotaries, which would be imperilled if their decisions were revisited every time a judge on appeal chose to exercise his discretion differently.

 

[32]           That is why the argument made by the applicant, seeking to establish that the prothonotary submitted no new facts on which he could reconsider the order by Madam Justice Gauthier, does not persuade this Court. As Mr. Justice Pelletier wrote in Microfibres Inc. v. Annabel Canada Inc., 2001 FCT 1032, [2001] F.C.J. No. 1427 (QL):

 

[14]          The Prothonotary is the designated case manager for this file and has been hearing various motions in that capacity. In making the order granting leave, the Prothonotary was, once again, acting in the capacity of case manager. Given the mandate of the case manager to give such directions as may lead to the most just and expeditious and least expensive resolution of the dispute between the parties, one can conclude that in those circumstances, the case manager is acting outside the adversarial system. This is so because he is entitled to act on his own motion. In my view, Rule 385 gave him the authority to grant leave to bring a motion which would otherwise be caught by the doctrine of res judicata and, in so doing, to set aside the application of res judicata as it would apply to that motion.

 

[15]          However, the policy behind the doctrine of res judicata remains sound: there should be a finality to decisions so that parties are not constantly relitigating the same question. The power of a case manager to revisit a question which has already been decided once is not to be exercised capriciously. In deciding whether the case manager has acted capriciously, the test to be met is not whether the circumstances have changed sufficiently that res judicata does not apply. The test is whether there exist facts from which the case manager could conclude that the process of bringing the case to a fair trial could be assisted by revisiting a particular question. The case manager’s views on this question would, in my view, be entitled to considerable deference. (Emphasis added.)

 

 

 

[33]      The position is no different from the argument made by counsel for the applicant, seeking to show that the prothonotary did not take into account the respondent’s conduct and its persistence in refusing to file a more complete affidavit of documents. Much emphasis was placed on the fact that the respondent’s lack of cooperation was the primary cause of the delays and the complexity of the proceedings, far more than the applicant’s choice to opt for the profits allegedly made by the respondent. The assessment made by the prothonotary of the best procedure to follow in resolving the matter as fairly and effectively as possible, and the reasons which led him to make that choice, seem to the Court to be at the heart of his discretion as a case manager, and this Court will only intervene with great hesitation and in the clearest cases on appeal from this type of decision. Despite the efforts made by the applicant in its written and oral submissions, it did not persuade the Court that the prothonotary made an obvious error in his assessment of the facts.

 

[34]      That being said, however, I must subscribe to the applicant’s argument regarding the prothonotary’s lack of power in the very special context of this matter. Rule 50(1)(g) expressly provides that the prothonotary can make no order the effect of which is to stay, set aside or vary an order of a judge, except for an order made pursuant to paragraphs 385(a), (b) or (c). The wording of this provision reads as follows:

 

[35]      Accordingly, as Madam Justice Gauthier did not make her order as a case manager, the prothonotary could not vary it or set it aside by another order. Rule 47 (and hence rule 107) can be of no assistance to him, since rule 50 is specifically to the opposite effect, within the meaning of rule 47. Moreover, it is significant that a prothonotary is given the power to vary an order by a judge when it was made in the context of powers exercised by him or her as a case manager. From this it must necessarily follow that the prothonotary does not have such a power when the judge’s order was made in some other capacity.

 

[36]      Although this result may seem excessively formalistic, it is not without consequence, at least in this case. It should be borne in mind that, in his order of October 24, 2003, the Chief Justice designated Mr. Justice Hugessen to manage this proceeding, with the assistance of Prothonotary Morneau. Accordingly, it is always possible for Mr. Justice Hugessen to vary the order by Madam Justice Gauthier, on the prothonotary’s recommendation or of his own motion, and order that the proceeding be severed.

 

[37]      Finally, I do not feel it is proper to revisit the costs of some $3,500 awarded by the prothonotary to the respondent. Bearing in mind once again the discretion vested in the prothonotary in his position as case manager, it was quite open to him to take the parties’ conduct into account in awarding costs (paragraph 400(3)(i)), as well as other factors listed in paragraphs 400(3)(a), (c) and (g). There is therefore no basis for intervening in this regard.

 

[38]      For all the foregoing reasons, the applicant’s motion appealing from the order by Prothonotary Richard Morneau on December 14, 2005 is denied, except as regards his ruling on severance of the proceeding. The matter will accordingly be referred back to the prothonotary as soon as this order becomes final for him to set a new schedule.

 

JUDGMENT

THE COURT ORDERS THAT:

-     The applicant’s motion appealing the order of Prothonotary Richard Morneau on December 14, 2005 is denied, except as regards his ruling on severance of the proceeding. The matter will accordingly be referred back to the prothonotary as soon as this order becomes final for him to set a new schedule.

 

 

 

                                                                                                            “Yves de Montigny”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Certified true translation

François Brunet, LLB, BCL

 

FEDERAL COURT

 

SOLICITORS OF RECORD

 

 

 

DOCKET:                                          T-697-02

 

STYLE OF CAUSE:                          OSMOSE-PENTOX INC.

                                                            v.

                                                            SOCIÉTÉ LAURENTIDE INC.

 

 

PLACE OF HEARING:                    Montréal, Quebec

 

DATE OF HEARING:                      March 13, 2006

 

REASONS FOR ORDER:               The Honourable Mr. Justice de Montigny

 

DATED:                                             March 27, 2006

 

 

 

APPEARANCES:

 

José Bonneau	FOR THE APPLICANT
Patrick Goudreau Kevin O’Brien	FOR THE RESPONDENT

 

SOLICITORS OF RECORD:

 

Dagenais & Associés Montréal, Quebec	FOR THE APPLICANT
Dunton, Rainville Montréal, Quebec	FOR THE RESPONDENT