Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Justice Pérodeau granted the Plaintiff's Notice of Case Management despite the Defendant's continued objections.
• Access to the Defendant's complete case file emerged as a recurring dispute that the Court found had already been resolved.
• Section 174 of the Code of Civil Procedure governed whether the Plaintiff's unilateral Request for Setting Down for Trial and Judgment would be deemed confirmed.
• Defendant's repeated failure to meet court-ordered deadlines, including the January 31, 2026 filing requirement, weighed heavily in the ruling.
• Self-represented litigant status did not entitle the Defendant to different procedural treatment, per the Court's reasoning.
• Legal costs were ultimately awarded in favour of the Plaintiff.

Facts of the case

Renno Vathilakis Inc. filed an Originating Application on March 31, 2025, against Andrew Harris, seeking to recover fees and interest owed for professional services rendered, as well as punitive damages arising from allegedly defamatory statements. Canada Coach & Mentor Academy Inc. was named as an impleaded party. The parties appeared before the Court on several occasions with mixed success in advancing the file. The Plaintiff applied to the Court by way of a Notice of Case Management (No. 69 on the docket), asking that its unilateral Request for Setting Down for Trial and Judgment be accepted and the file referred to the provisional roll call for trial scheduling. Harris, representing himself, opposed this, arguing that he had not received a complete copy of his file from the Plaintiff and was therefore unable to prepare his defence, conduct examinations before trial, request undertakings, file a cross-application, or prepare expert evidence.

Procedural provisions and prior orders at issue

No insurance policy or contract clause is discussed in this judgment. The relevant provision is section 174 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which allows a plaintiff to file a unilateral declaration for setting a matter down for trial and judgment when the parties cannot agree jointly; that declaration is deemed confirmed unless another party specifies, within 15 days of notification, what should be added or deleted. The Court also relied on the December 15, 2025 order of Justice Florence Lucas, who dismissed Harris's "Motion to Strike Trial Inscription, Stay of Proceedings, and Request for a Case Management Hearing" with costs, and who ordered Harris to file a modified statement of defence by January 15, 2026, and to complete and file the Request for Setting Down for Trial and Judgment by January 31, 2026, failing which he risked being barred from presenting evidence at trial.

Reasoning and analysis

Justice Pérodeau found that Harris was raising issues already decided by the Court, noting this was not the first time he had complained about an incomplete file or argued the matter could not proceed on that basis. The record showed that, in response to a complaint Harris filed with the Bar, the Plaintiff resent him an email with links to all documents in his file, copying a Bar representative. Harris acknowledged receiving that email but continued to assert the file was incomplete and refused to sign the joint request. He failed to comply with any of Justice Lucas's orders, and his February 4, 2026 attempt to file an incomplete unilateral request was refused as inadmissible. When the Plaintiff later incorporated Harris's answers about trial logistics into a request and returned it for his signature, Harris reversed course, citing the need for more time to finalize an amended defence and a cross-application. Turning to the law, the Court held that the same procedural rules apply to all litigants, including self-represented parties, and that judges cannot create separate rules to accommodate them. Because Harris had not specified, within the 15-day period under section 174, what should be added or deleted, the Court found the Plaintiff's unilateral Request for Setting Down for Trial and Judgment deemed confirmed. It nonetheless indicated it would take into account information from Harris's own unilateral request dated January 31, 2026, and his February 4, 2026 email to the Plaintiff.

Ruling and outcome

The Court granted the Plaintiff's Notice of Case Management (No. 69) and accepted the Plaintiff's unilateral Request for Setting Down for Trial and Judgment (No. 51). I flag that the judgment itself states two different filing dates for this request — November 27, 2025 in the final order and November 28, 2025 earlier in the reasons — a discrepancy present in the original document rather than an error introduced here. Renno Vathilakis Inc., the Plaintiff, was the successful party. The Plaintiff was instructed to file a modified Request within 21 days, and the file was referred to the Clerk of the Court to verify trial readiness and to the Master of the Rolls to schedule the provisional roll call. The determination of the Plaintiff's claim regarding alleged substantial breaches in the conduct of the proceeding was left to the trial judge. The Court awarded legal costs in favour of the Plaintiff; no specific monetary amount was stated in the judgment.