Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Lawyer misconduct and deception by former counsel, including fabricated court proceedings and correspondence, undermined the integrity of prior orders and raised whether clients’ rights could fairly be restored.
• Application of Rule 37.14 turned on whether respondents’ failure to appear arose from “accident or mistake,” and if their motions to set aside the January 2025 Order were brought “forthwith” despite significant delay.
• Differing factual records for the Foulidis and Conforti respondent groups created tension between individualized “forthwith” assessments and the need to avoid inconsistent or procedurally chaotic outcomes among co-respondents.
• The court grappled with prejudice on both sides: respondents suffering from garnishments and business disruption, and the applicant having already relied on and enforced the January 2025 Order in various ways.
• Determining how far to unravel the January 2025 enforcement steps required careful distinction between information/relief already mandated by earlier 2024 consent orders and what flowed only from the January 2025 Order.
• Costs allocation raised an evidentiary and responsibility issue: the applicant recovered $60,000 in partial indemnity costs, with half recoverable by the Foulidis respondents from their former lawyer personally, reflecting the court’s condemnation of his conduct.

Background of the dispute and earlier court orders
The litigation arises out of a commercial dispute centered on the iWindows and iWindowsDoors window and door business, operated through numbered companies and involving multiple individual and corporate respondents. The applicant sought relief concerning the conduct of the respondents in the management of the business, its finances, and its assets. In 2024, two key consent orders were made: an order of May 27, 2024 by Justice Black, and an order of June 10–11, 2024 by Justice Osborne. Those orders required extensive financial and business disclosure, including customer and supplier lists, bank statements, and detailed information about jobs completed and payments, and also allowed for recovery of certain personal property. The respondents, represented then by lawyer John Ormston, were clearly aware of and bound by those 2024 orders, and a forensic accountant was retained to assist with compliance. However, despite this, the court later found that as of January 27, 2025, the respondents had failed to comply with the May and June 2024 orders, and that these ongoing breaches were harming the core iWindows business. A separate modest costs award was also made in September 2024 by another judge after a further step in the litigation.

The January 2025 order and its consequences
On January 27, 2025, the applicant brought a motion based on the respondents’ non-compliance with the 2024 orders. The respondents, still on record with Mr. Ormston, did not deliver responding materials and did not appear. Justice Black declined to make a contempt finding (principally because the intent element from Carey v. Laiken was not clearly established on the record) but nonetheless granted significant relief. The January 2025 Order struck the respondents’ responding materials, directed that the application proceed on an unopposed basis, granted the applicant wide access to the respondents’ bank records and business information, and authorized recovery of personal property. It also gave the applicant “sole full authority and decision-making power” over iWindows, including the ability to remove respondent Sandra (Alessandra) Conforti as officer and director. After January 2025, the applicant began enforcing this order: the sheriff attended at a respondent’s address, personal and corporate bank accounts were garnisheed, and the applicant obtained access to bank accounts, customer lists and other business information. These enforcement steps, particularly garnishment of the personal and company accounts of respondent Konstantino (Danny) Foulidis and his numbered company, triggered the unraveling of serious problems in the solicitor–client relationship.

Misconduct by former counsel and its impact on the proceedings
The central difficulty before the court on the present motions was the conduct of former counsel, Mr. Ormston, who had acted for all respondents. Evidence from respondent Danny Foulidis, supported by extensive text messages, showed that initially in 2024, Mr. Ormston communicated about the case, delivered a notice of appearance, and appeared to work toward compliance with the 2024 orders. Communication then faded, and from August 2024 onward, he did not keep Foulidis informed about the case. Critically, when Foulidis first learned of the January 2025 Order in May 2025—after the sheriff attended and showed a copy of the order—he contacted Mr. Ormston, who falsely stated he had not been served and had no idea what the order was about. In reality, he had been present when the January 27, 2025 motion date was set in December 2024, had called opposing counsel on the morning of the hearing to report a medical issue preventing attendance, and had ample notice to deliver responding material but failed to do so. After this initial misrepresentation, Mr. Ormston’s conduct escalated. He told Foulidis he would bring a motion to set aside the January 2025 Order and assured him that the order would inevitably be set aside on the basis of lack of notice. He falsely claimed that the order had been stayed pending that motion. As garnishments hit Foulidis’ personal and company accounts in June 2025, he told his client he had spoken to the court and they would get a judge “early next week.” He then stated that a motion would proceed on July 2, 2025 before Justice Cavanagh and that the sheriff was holding funds pending further order. On the supposed hearing date, he texted that he was on a “morning break” from court and later reported that the motion had gone “good.” He subsequently claimed to be chasing a delayed decision from Justice Cavanagh, said he had contacted Justice Kimmel (Commercial List Team Lead) about the delay, and repeatedly told Foulidis he was following up. He even forwarded to Foulidis what purported to be an email to the Chief Justice’s judicial assistant, complaining that a July 2 motion before Justice Cavanagh to set aside the January 2025 Order was still under reserve and that the ongoing garnishment was severely harming his client. Court checks later confirmed that no such motion had ever been scheduled or argued, and email details disclosed that the “judicial assistant” email address was not valid. When confronted at his home office in December 2025, Mr. Ormston admitted he had never brought the motion he claimed to have argued. He described his behaviour as a “betrayal,” said he was “sick to his stomach,” and indicated he would contact LawPro and surrender his file so new counsel could be retained. He then effectively disappeared from the proceeding and did not participate in the present motions despite being notified and encouraged by Justice Black to attend with counsel. The court found that he lied repeatedly—to his clients and potentially to others—about knowledge of the January 27 hearing, about bringing and arguing a motion on July 2, 2025, about contacting judges and staff, and about correspondence with the Chief Justice’s office, fabricating documents in the process. The judge stated that this conduct was a serious betrayal of his clients, the profession and the administration of justice.

The Rule 37.14 motions and differential treatment of respondent groups
Both sets of respondents eventually brought motions under Rule 37.14 of the Rules of Civil Procedure to set aside or vary the January 2025 Order, alleging they were unaware of the motion and the order at the relevant time. Rule 37.14 allows a person who fails to appear on a motion “through accident, mistake or insufficient notice” to move “forthwith” after the order comes to their attention, and gives the court discretion to set aside or vary the order on such terms as are just. The judge applied the five-factor framework from Ontario (AG) v. 15 Johnswood Crescent, as reaffirmed in Aluminum Window Design Installations Inc. v. Grandview Living Inc. and related authorities. Those factors are: (1) proof of accident or mistake; (2) moving forthwith after learning of the order; (3) the length and explanation of any delay; (4) the presence or absence of prejudice; and (5) the underlying merits. For the Foulidis respondents, the court held that the first requirement—accident or mistake—was satisfied. Drawing on the principle that “the sins of the lawyer should not be visited upon the client,” the judge found that the failure to appear and defend was primarily the result of their lawyer’s misconduct and misrepresentations. Although, unlike Aluminum Window, the court did not have medical evidence of a diagnosed condition affecting counsel, Justice Black held that the absence of such evidence should not redound to the clients’ detriment when the lawyer had chosen to remain absent and silent despite being notified. On the second factor—moving “forthwith”—the Foulidis group faced a delay of just over one year between the January 2025 Order and their motion. Nonetheless, the court accepted that throughout this period, they were actively checking in with their lawyer, were repeatedly reassured that he was handling the problem (including having allegedly argued a motion to set aside the order), and reasonably believed a decision was pending. On that record, and following Aluminum Window, Justice Black found that their delay stemmed from bad legal advice and deception, not from passivity, satisfying the “forthwith” requirement in these unusual circumstances. By contrast, the Conforti respondents (principally Philippe Kyritsis and Sandra Conforti) had a weaker Rule 37.14 position. They changed counsel in May 2025 and served a notice of change of solicitors, demonstrating awareness of the January 2025 Order and its enforcement. Though new counsel made some efforts to obtain the old file and contact Mr. Ormston, the court found there was no prompt move to schedule a Rule 37.14 motion. Instead, their request to bring such a motion first emerged at a December 3, 2025 case conference, some six months after new counsel came on record, and only when confronted with a renewed attempt by the applicant to schedule a contempt motion. At that case conference, Justice Black explicitly warned that they would need to explain their hiatus and directed that any Rule 37.14 motion be brought “promptly,” cautioning that delay would not assist their position. On the present record, he concluded that their delay was not adequately explained and that, viewed in isolation, they did not meet the “forthwith” requirement. Had they been the only parties seeking Rule 37.14 relief, the judge stated he would not have granted their motion.

Managing prejudice, procedural coherence and the effect of setting aside the order
The court then confronted whether it was practically and procedurally workable to grant Rule 37.14 relief to the Foulidis respondents alone while leaving the Conforti respondents bound by the January 2025 Order. Justice Black concluded that such a split outcome would produce “tremendous uncertainty” and “unmanageable disparity” between co-respondents. The January 2025 Order struck all respondents’ pleadings and allowed the application to proceed unopposed. Their factual positions and evidence were closely intertwined: if one group was permitted to defend on the merits using evidence the other group would have relied on, inconsistent findings would be likely and the procedural posture would become chaotic. In addition, the provision granting the applicant sole authority over iWindows and the power to remove Sandra Conforti as director sat uneasily with the notion that another respondent group (Foulidis) should now be allowed to contest the underlying relief. Keeping full managerial control in the applicant’s hands, while reopening defences for some but not all respondents, risked serious procedural imbalance. Faced with these realities, the judge determined that the January 2025 Order should not continue to operate in its original, full form against any of the respondents. Instead, he allowed the Rule 37.14 motions to the extent that no further steps were required of the respondents at that time to comply with the January 2025 Order. He directed the parties to schedule a 90-minute case conference before him. At that conference, they must bring detailed, itemized lists describing which enforcement and disclosure steps have already been taken under the May 27, 2024 Order, the June 10, 2024 Order, and the January 2025 Order. The goal is to sort out what can remain in place and what, if anything, should be reversed, taking into account that some disclosures and property transfers were already required under the 2024 consent orders, which remain in force. The judge observed that “the toothpaste” cannot entirely be put back into the tube: financial records and customer lists have been disclosed, and property has been recovered. To the extent such steps were originally mandated by the 2024 consent orders, there is no basis to unwind them. To the extent they flowed only from the January 2025 Order, the court will decide, after fuller information and if needed a further motion, whether any reversal is appropriate. On prejudice, Justice Black acknowledged harm on all sides. The respondents suffered from the severe consequences of the January 2025 Order and the cost and complexity of bringing the present motions, much of which traced back to their former lawyer’s conduct. The applicant, in turn, had invested time and money enforcing the order and now had to respond to the motions and face uncertainty over whether previously completed steps would stand. The remaining Johnswood factors—length of delay and underlying merits—were treated as largely subsumed in this analysis: delay was mitigated by the evidence of deception and client diligence in the Foulidis group, and the merits would be more appropriately assessed when the application proceeds on a fuller record once the procedural posture is regularized.

Outcome, costs and identification of the successful party
In the result, Justice Black ordered that the respondents’ Rule 37.14 motions were granted in part. No further compliance was required from them at that time under the January 2025 Order, and the case would be managed through a case conference and, if needed, further motions to determine which prior enforcement and disclosure steps should stand. The underlying application itself has not yet been finally resolved on the merits, and no quantified damages judgment on the core commercial dispute was issued in this endorsement. On the question of success and monetary consequence, the order is mixed: the respondents obtained important procedural relief effectively reopening their opportunity to defend, but the court found that the applicant was entitled to his costs of the motions. Justice Black fixed the applicant’s partial indemnity costs at $60,000 (all-inclusive), payable 50% by the Foulidis respondents and 50% by the Conforti respondents. Crucially, he held that the Foulidis respondents are entitled to recover all of their share of those costs from their former counsel, Mr. Ormston, personally, given his egregious conduct, whereas the Conforti respondents have no such recourse. Thus, while the respondents achieved the key procedural outcome of having the January 2025 Order effectively set aside in terms of further obligations, the applicant emerged as the successful party on costs, with a total monetary award of $60,000 ordered in his favour; beyond that costs award, no separate quantified damages or monetary relief was determined in this decision.