Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Scope and propriety of an interlocutory injunction to restrain former employees and their new company from soliciting customers and using alleged confidential information.
• Assessment of whether prior refusal of an interim injunction, without new evidence, undermined the plaintiff’s case for further interlocutory relief.
• Evaluation of the defendants’ alleged misuse of confidential information versus other alleged wrongs (unlawful solicitation and breach of common law duties) that were left for trial.
• Application of the Ontario costs framework (Courts of Justice Act and Rule 57) to determine whether costs should be awarded immediately or reserved to the trial judge.
• Treatment of extensive cross-examination work and whether those efforts were primarily for the motion or would properly be reusable at trial.
• Fixing a fair and proportionate partial indemnity costs figure in light of hours claimed, multiple counsel involvement, and the need to avoid over-lawyering and duplication.

Background and parties

Wilride Transport Ltd. is a transportation company operating, among other things, a brokerage division. Several of its key personnel, including Ryan Crozier, left Wilride and became involved with a competing business, Controlled Logistics Ltd. (CLL). The individual defendants (Crozier, Michael Brownlee, and Michael Reid) and CLL are collectively referred to as the “CLL Parties.” Following Crozier’s resignation, Wilride alleged that these former employees and their new company were unfairly competing by soliciting Wilride’s customers and misusing confidential information obtained during their employment. The dispute quickly moved into urgent litigation, where Wilride sought to restrict the defendants’ ability to carry on business and to protect its information.

Interlocutory injunction relief sought

Wilride brought a motion seeking significant interlocutory injunctive relief. It asked the court to restrain the defendants, and anyone with notice of the order, from directly or indirectly soliciting or attempting to solicit any of Wilride’s clients or customers for six months. It further sought an order preventing CLL, for the same six-month period, from doing business with any customer who had done business with Wilride’s brokerage division before Crozier’s resignation. Wilride also requested a broad confidential information injunction, prohibiting the defendants and anyone acting on their behalf from possessing, disclosing, using, copying, or divulging Wilride’s confidential information in any way, and directing them to return and destroy all such information. Costs of the motion were also claimed in Wilride’s favour if it succeeded. The injunction motion was argued in writing on October 6, 2025. On December 17, 2025, the court (Fragomeni J.) dismissed the motion for an interlocutory injunction in its entirety. While the detailed reasons are not reproduced in the costs endorsement, Wilride later summarized its own position as having advanced three bases for injunctive relief: (a) misuse of confidential information to compete unfairly, (b) unlawful solicitation of its customers, and (c) breach of common law duties by Crozier as a key employee. According to Wilride’s submissions on costs, the court’s earlier decision primarily addressed the confidential information issue, with the remaining questions about solicitation and breach of duty to be determined at trial.

Competing positions on costs

After successfully resisting the injunction, the CLL Parties sought their costs on a partial indemnity basis. They asked for $47,884.76 inclusive of disbursements and HST, payable forthwith. In support of this figure, they emphasized that the motion was critically important to them because the broad injunction, if granted, could effectively have prevented them from operating and earning a living. They characterized the issues as moderately complex and highlighted that their total hours (120.2) were nearly identical to those of Wilride’s counsel, that they retained experienced lead counsel supported by junior lawyers, and that the stakes justified the costs claimed. They also argued that Wilride should not have pressed ahead with an interlocutory injunction after an interim injunction had already been refused, especially when no new evidence was advanced, suggesting that the plaintiff’s litigation choices contributed to unnecessary expense. Wilride, for its part, resisted the defendants’ claim for costs. It contended that no costs should be awarded at this stage, arguing that the CLL Parties were only partly successful because the court’s earlier decision dealt in substance with alleged misuse of confidential information, while other issues—unlawful solicitation and breach of common law duties—remained for trial. On that basis, Wilride relied on authority where courts have declined to award costs to technically successful defendants in light of problematic conduct or unresolved central issues. In the alternative, Wilride submitted that, if costs were to be awarded, they should be reserved to the trial judge on the theory that the ultimate outcome at trial, including any findings of wrongful conduct, would better inform a fair allocation of costs. As a further alternative, it argued that costs for the motion should be capped at $20,000 all-inclusive, in the cause, pointing out that its own counsel had spent fewer lawyer hours, with the balance of work performed by a law clerk.

Legal framework governing costs

In assessing costs, the court applied the general Ontario principles under section 131 of the Courts of Justice Act and Rule 57 of the Rules of Civil Procedure. The endorsement referenced appellate guidance emphasizing that fixing costs is a discretionary, contextual exercise that must consider factors such as the result obtained, complexity and importance of the issues, amounts claimed, the principle of indemnity, and the reasonable expectations of the unsuccessful party. The judge cited and adopted reasoning from recent cases, including Apotex Inc. v. Eli Lilly Canada Inc. and Aware Ads Inc. v. Walker, which stress that a court must critically examine the costs claimed and then step back to consider whether the overall figure is fair, reasonable, and proportionate in the circumstances. The endorsement underlined that costs are not a mechanical “hours times rate” calculation. Rather, the proper objective is to fix an amount that is objectively reasonable for the unsuccessful party to pay, not necessarily to mirror the successful party’s actual expenditures. The court also accepted the approach in Aware Ads that, absent extraordinary circumstances, costs on an unsuccessful interlocutory injunction should ordinarily be payable forthwith, given the express wording of Rule 57.03 requiring the fixing of motion costs, typically payable within 30 days, unless some different order would be more just.

Treatment of cross-examination work

A significant point of dispute concerned cross-examinations conducted in connection with the injunction motion. The CLL Parties’ bill of costs included substantial time for preparing for and attending cross-examinations, preparing related materials, answering undertakings, working with clients to respond to undertakings and advisements, and managing document production arising from those processes. Wilride argued that this work would be used at trial and therefore should not be fully costed as part of the interlocutory motion, especially if costs were to be fixed immediately rather than left to the trial judge. The court disagreed with Wilride’s position in substance, again relying on the reasoning in Aware Ads. It accepted that the cross-examinations were conducted primarily for the purposes of the interlocutory motion, in particular to address issues of irreparable harm and balance of convenience. Even though some of that material might later be repurposed at trial, that potential reuse did not change the original character of the work as motion-related. The judge observed that any later trial judge would be free to consider whether and to what extent cross-examination work done for the motion had broader utility in the litigation and could adjust overall trial costs accordingly to avoid double counting. As a result, the cross-examination efforts were treated as properly part of the costs of the motion, subject only to scrutiny for reasonableness and duplication.

Fixing a fair and proportionate quantum

Turning to quantum, the court reviewed the CLL Parties’ bill of costs and the roles and rates of the legal team: a senior partner with 22 years’ experience at $495 per hour, juniors at $300 and $270 per hour respectively, and a law clerk at $210 per hour. While generally satisfied that the overall hours and rates were within a reasonable range given the importance of the motion, the judge identified concerns in one particular area—the cross-examination-related work. The bill showed that a total of 67.76 hours had been billed on cross-examination tasks, with time spread across three lawyers and a law clerk. The court found it difficult, on the motion record, to rule out duplication of work and questioned why three different lawyers were required for those tasks. Recognizing a risk of over-lawyering, the judge adjusted that component by reducing the cross-examination item from approximately $22,393.50 down to a fixed figure of $15,000. After making this targeted reduction, the court was satisfied that the remaining fees were fair, reasonable, and proportionate in light of the issues and stakes. Stepping back, the judge concluded that the CLL Parties had been entirely successful on the injunction motion, that there were no extraordinary circumstances justifying a departure from the usual rule that successful parties receive costs, and that it was appropriate to order payment forthwith rather than reserving costs to the trial. The final order therefore directed that Wilride Transport Ltd. pay the defendants their partial indemnity costs, fixed at an all-inclusive sum of $40,000, payable within 30 days, thereby confirming the CLL Parties as the successful litigants on the interlocutory injunction motion and related costs proceedings and quantifying the monetary award in their favour at that amount.