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11/26/2025

SERVING ADDRESS FOR SERVICE

A recent Court of Appeal decision is educational on two topics.

A. Address for Service

Self-represented parties often try to make it impossible to serve documents on them. They demand proof of personal service of everything. But that is completely wrong. The Rules of Court do not require personal service of any document after the suit’s commencement. See R. 11.15. An address for service is needed on court documents filed: see R. 13.13(2)(f). The form for a statement of claim or statement of defence is prescribed in the Rules. See also Stevenson & Côté, Alberta Civil Procedure Handbook R. 11.15n.

So, no party has an absolute right to receive papers or notice. As noted, a statement of defence (or statement of claim) has to give an address for service. That has been the law for well over a century. Litigation would not work without those rules. And after service on an address for service, papers left at that address, or sent to it in certain ways, are in law service and in law are notice. A defendant cannot make the plaintiff go through the steps to prove its case, unless the defendant gives an address for service. Parties who do not receive, open or read things given to that address, are the authors of their own misfortune.

Often a suit involving a self-represented plaintiff, has a history of the other party having to serve everything personally. The self-represented litigant has not given, or does not respect, an address for service. No judge or justice should let that dance continue. The self-represented party should be told to give an address for service at once, and an order should be issued saying that is the address for service, and service there suffices.

Here the Court of Appeal hinted at all that, but actually based its decision on the other legal point.

B. Exhausting Procedural Remedies in the Court Appealed From

The Court of Appeal emphasized the importance of Rules 9.15 and 9.16. They give King’s Bench judges and justices the power to upset King’s Bench judgments or orders which were made without notice, or where the opponent did not appear by accident, mistake or insufficient notice.

The Court of Appeal held that usually lack of notice or service should be decided (first) in the Court of King’s Bench, not the Court of Appeal. Rule 9.16 says that the original King’s Bench Justice should decide the matter. Often extra evidence is needed. The original judge is much better situated to hear that evidence and decide that, than is a panel of three Justices of Appeal.

See Lavoie v. Lukiw 2025 ABCA 377 (Nov 19).

http://www.legalviews.com/coteopinion121.htm...

Hon. J.E. Côté

11/26/2025

DODGING CASE LAW

These days, it is fairly common to see a judgment or ruling which does not use case law well, or even at all. Why? Counsel may not have helped the judge much. A computer search or law book may not have revealed applicable precedents. Authority may have been scarce or old. This area of law might be little known. Time might have been very tight. Counsel may have conceded something.

But sometimes the omission’s cause is closer to the bench. The judge’s motivation may have been good, but the thinking was ill-informed. Or the judge may have felt that known authority was not worth following. The Hon. Jack Watson has studied the ups and downs of Canadian legal precedents for decades. He has boiled down the possible motivations for not following precedent, to 13. Here they are.

Law Indifference: The judge does not try to find out what the law is, and proceeds on idiosyncratic views or theories of what it ought to be, if it were located.

Law Resistance: The judge essentially understands the case law, but dislikes it, and works to undermine its effect or authority.

Law Ignoring: The judge buries or sidesteps adverse authorities, largely by not considering or not mentioning them, whether the judge knows them or not.

Law Oblivion: The judge hopes that if the law is not mentioned, it will go away.

Law Expiry: The judge, consciously or not, presumes that any case law not regularly re-invigorated by high authority becomes feeble and fades away, leaving a blank slate. (Yet authority says that binding decisions do not curdle over time.)

Law Re-Starting: The judge recasts the law’s history to imply trends or a consensus which did not occur, in order to undermine current propositions or to re-direct future development.

Law Imagining: The judge’s wishful thinking about the law over-writes what the law is, so the judge presumes that his hypothesis is the law, even where it is not.

Law Selection: The judge cherry-picks a little case law or passages in it, to give the law a different present appearance.

Law Tidying: The judge seeks to ‘simplify’ or ‘summarize’ the legal position, thus encapsulating, mostly in order to erase existing but undesired nuances or clarifications.

Law Re-Weighing: The judge escalates a proposition’s importance or authority, suggesting that some sources are innately better than others, while disregarding hierarchy of case law or even reality.

Law Parochialism: The judge chooses most or all authorities cited, from the same level of court in the same locality, as if nothing important happens further away.

Law Laundering: The judge actively promotes a position by whitewashing and uplifting court decisions of limited value, often adding this laundering to one or more of the other variants listed above.

Law Arrogation: The judge begins to think that the judge is the law.

http://www.legalviews.com/coteopinion120.htm...
Jean Côté and Jack Watson

11/06/2025

HOURLY RATE v. ESTIMATE

Sympathy for clients can sometimes be justified, but it can lead courts to impose on lawyers rather one-sided “contracts”. A vital topic for any contract for services is whether the fee will be a fixed amount, or will be based on other circumstances, such as how much labor later turns out to be required. For a legal retainer, it is the most important topic.

When the express agreement is that the fee will simply be $x per hour worked, barring anything different for results, often the client later asks for an “estimate”. Some clients then later claim that that was a ceiling. In a recent case, that happened. When the retainer was about a year old, the client asked for an “estimate” after the court had fixed the trial date. Having got the estimate, then the client ended by stating that he could not pay more than the estimate. The assessment officer held that that did not change the basic contract, but a King’s Bench justice reversed the officer. He did not cite a long appellate discussion about trying later to add restrictions to an existing contract for billing strictly on an hourly basis: Samson Cree N. v. O'Reilly 2014 ABCA 268, 580 AR 181. It is just possible that the facts in this recent case could justify upsetting the assessment officer. But the justice did not mention the strict but complicated standard of review and differing topics, on appeal.

Unfortunately, this recent King’s Bench decision devotes big parts to suggesting and emphasizing some apparently general propositions. In a dispute about the size of litigation fees, they are very surprising and extremely dubious.

This was not a contract to do solicitors’ work, or to apply to the court for something uncontested. At the outset, the client had retained this very experienced counsel for litigation. The opponent fully contested the matters, so this client either had to abandon his position, or run the full scheduled King’s Bench trial. Therefore, the estimate sought was for preparing for and running the trial.

Maybe the cost of some types of expert work (such as building a one-car garage or filing a caveat) can be reliably estimated. But the amount of work involved in a full trial rarely can be reliably predicted. By definition, the work consists of a fight between two or more opposing parties. Each party is free to choose how to run its case and oppose the other side. Even an attempt to go off into irrelevant or unpleaded avenues will often lead to lengthy procedural arguments and motions. Many other things can produce unexpected motions. Surprise witnesses are always possible. Some opposing counsel are brief and selective in their cross-examination; others take days with one witness. Some witnesses are succinct; others are talkative and will not concede even the obvious when cross-examined. Some opponents cite only relevant persuasive authorities. Others cite a great deal of law not really on point. Some opponents are ready for anything; others are ill-prepared, surprised by many things, and want adjournments. Some opposing counsel control their clients; others do whatever their client wishes. Some counsel are experienced in this type of litigation; others are not, and do not know how to prepare or be efficient.

And this was a “family law” trial. Such litigation is notoriously unpredictable, and often disproportionate. Sometimes it is emotional, even irrational. Here the disputed bill was only about 17% above the estimate, and during trial, counsel had warned the client that they were running over budget. Evidently the client then kept on with the fight. He seems to have paid counsel the required deposit somewhat closer to the trial date.

The justice suggests that it would be absurd for a lawyer to give a budget or hours to be spent and have no obligation to limit counsel’s services to those contemplated in the budget (¶ 23). But estimates and budgets are mere predictions of the future. No person, operation, or business ever ends up with a year’s expenses and revenue, exactly equal to what was budgeted. Unexpected work is very common. Business people know the difference between an estimate and a lump-sum contract. So does the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. A budget is a periodic estimate, says that Dictionary.

But this justice has very different ideas. He suggests that counsel had entire control over the amount of work he did at trial, or who did the work, e.g. himself or a junior (¶ 20). But counsel could not stop attending the trial when the time estimate ran out. Nor could he from that point sit at counsel table reading a newspaper and doing nothing. The counsel retained was a very experienced counsel practising this type of litigation. He was not a junior inexperienced lawyer. Clearly, he could not in midstream drop out and substitute for himself a junior. Counsel running a trial have contractual and ethical obligations, enforced by the Law Society.

This decision by the justice even accuses the counsel of “wholly improper and illogical” conduct because he did not cease to act and then later billed more than the estimate (¶ 17). And it states that the estimate was just what counsel proposed and entirely within counsel’s control, to create a reasonable expectation (¶ 19). But it was not a proposal, nor a “fee quoted”. And what work would actually need to be done to prepare for and run the trial, was not within counsel’s full knowledge, nor at all within his control, for all the reasons given above. Probably counsel could not cease to act after the trial date was fixed by the court.

This recent decision is Howland v. Foster 2025 ABKB 586 (Oct 14).

http://www.legalviews.com/coteopinion118.htm...

Hon. J.E. Côté

11/06/2025

SLOW-MOVING LAWSUITS

Two recent Alberta decisions about this topic must be read with care.

The Court of Appeal’s brief decision held that a certain factual decision by a chambers justice could not be upset on appeal because of the wide scope for chambers justices given by the standard of review on appeal. And it is important to recall that court decisions about facts are not precedents, especially under Rules 4.31 and 4.33. (Such case law is cited in my Oct. 15 ʼ24 and Mar 18 ʼ24 blogs.) And trebly so where the topic is a discretionary question. Here, the only law stated by the Court of Appeal is not surprising. Under R. 4.31, there is no presumption of significant prejudice to the defendant unless the delay was both inordinate and inexcusable. There is also probably an implied legal proposition, that lack of both employment and money (at the same time) can be relevant to whether delay in advancing oneʼs lawsuit was excusable, so prejudice cannot be presumed.

The Court of Appeal repeated the settled law that generally only the plaintiff has a duty to advance the lawsuit, not the defendant. The defendant does have a duty to discharge separate procedural obligations, such as the duty to answer discovery (questioning) undertakings within a reasonable time (or duty to file a defence or comply with court orders) (¶ 23). And a defendantʼs breach of such a specific procedural duty can be one element relevant to whether the plaintiffʼs delay was excusable (¶ 24). (There was also a ruling on whether signing a Form 37 to set down for trial could be acquiescence in delay.)

This Court of Appeal decision is Ranger v. Precision Geomatics 2025 ABCA 357 (Oct 31).

The other decision is by a Court of Kingʼs Bench justice. It cites few precedents about dismissal for delay. Relying on it for legal propositions would be dangerous. It is dangerous because often one cannot be sure whether certain passages are intended to state some new legal propositions. And many of the supposed or actual legal propositions stated are at best dubious, and in some cases are wrong. Several of the propositions contain gaps in logic. Rule 4.31 and much case law state the opposite to many of the propositions. To avoid undue length, I will not set out the bulky contrary case law here. Instead, I list a number of my online Juriliber blogs which do cite the case law.

This decision upsets an application judge and instead refuses to dismiss a suit for delay in prosecution. Yet the lawsuit was sixteen years old and not ready for trial. And the incidents sued over were much staler: apparently about thirty years old (see ¶ʼs 65, 66, 72). The decision never mentions the well-settled and important need to weigh heavily the inevitable deterioration of memories after even five or ten years have passed, let alone thirty. (Authorities are listed in my Feb. 12 ʼ25 and Dec. 2 ʼ24 blogs.) The decision seems to dodge that prejudice by suggesting that there was some evidence in records, and that there could not be any useful oral evidence (¶ʼs 68, 70-71). That is illogical, as my Oct. 15 ʼ24 blog explains. The plaintiff gave evidence about a number of former employees of thirty years before, and how hard it was to secure their testimony. The reasons here merely say that the witnesses had been asked and did not know much. But they were asked twenty-five or more years after the events sued over. People do not know what they can no longer remember. The decision moves the onus of proof of what a missing witness would have known or said at one time, onto the defendant. Much case law rejects that unjust and illogical Catch-22. (See my Feb. 12 ʼ25 and Dec. 2 ʼ24 and Feb. 7 ʼ22 blogs.) For one thing, the test under R. 4.31 is not who is likely to win the lawsuit, nor is it whether the delay was bad enough that at trial it would turn what was a clear win into a clear loss. Shortly after the event, the plaintiff had both witnesses and documents. Now the plaintiff only has documents. That is ordinarily fatal prejudice. (See the law listed in my Feb. 12 ʼ25, Dec. 2 ʼ24, Oct. 15 ʼ24 and July 23 ʼ24 blogs.)

This Kingʼs Bench decision also puts a heavy onus on the defendant to complete all its examination for discovery (questioning) promptly, and calls any failure to do so part of the delay which the court must note and use to eliminate or excuse the plaintiffʼs delay. (See ¶ 40.) That ignores the settled basic principle (noted at the beginning of the present blog), that the defendant has no general duty to advance the suit. (See also my Feb. 7 ʼ22 blog.) Only those things which the Rules or a court order impose on the defendant with a time limit, count that way. The Rules do not put any duty on a defendant to conduct any examination for discovery (questioning). Nor do the reasons show that the plaintiff asked the court to make the defendant do anything in that respect.

We must recall that excuses for delay are relevant only where R. 4.31ʼs presumption of prejudice is invoked.

Another novel proposition is the suggestion that periods when both parties were working on the lawsuit are irrelevant and not to be counted (¶ 44, cf. ¶ 59). That is wrong. It is trite law that the court must see how much total time has elapsed, and compare that with how much time would necessarily have elapsed had the suit been run efficiently. Under R. 4.31, all the time spent must be noted and added up. (See the authorities cited in my July 23 ʼ24 blog.)

The key assumption in this decision seems to be that the test under R. 4.31 is estimating which party moved slower than the other, a sort of tortoise vs. tortoise race. No case law for that is cited, and I do not recall ever reading any. A huge amount of case law is directly or indirectly contrary to such a procedure or calculation.

One pause suddenly occurred because the defendantʼs lawyer was ready to examine for discovery (question), but fell ill without warning. The reasons simply assume that that time taken was improper, without stating why nor citing any evidence of why. And as noted, a defendant has no duty at all to examine for discovery (question).

The decision also counts as delay, the time taken to get answers to some undertakings by the defendant. Yet some undertakings proved impossible to answer: no one under the control of the defendant knew anything relevant, nor had any documents (¶ 53). After thirty years, and a number of past employees involved, is it surprising that seeking more information would take a long time? A non-party former employee is under no duty to drop everything else and research something or to search for records, and his former employer cannot force him to do that, let alone do it quickly. After thirty years, it is hard to know who to ask, or how to contact him, or even where to begin looking for records. How can the long-gone witnessesʼ delay be the defendantʼs fault? Many decided cases say that if that is anyoneʼs fault, it is the slow-moving plaintiffʼs fault.

The Court of Kingʼs Bench decision is EMM Enr. v. Cdn. Nat. Resources 2025 ABKB 620 (Oct. 28).

http://www.legalviews.com/coteopinion119.htm...
Hon. J.E. Côté

10/15/2025

IMPOSSIBLE FILINGS

Sometimes trying to file something in the Court of King’s Bench resembles running a race in the twilight over moving dark hurdles.

Where a deadline looms, filing and serving an appeal or an application in the Court of King's Bench is sometimes impossible. The court ordinarily will not allow a lawyer to file anything at the counter, even in an emergency. (Yet all self-represented can do that.) Court staff never acknowledge the same day whether filing was successful or unsuccessful. Why do court staff later deem a good document a nullity? There are many reasons. Sometimes where or when or how to file is very unclear. Or timely filings can be rejected well after the deadline because of minor flaws which could have been corrected in a couple of minutes if anyone had told the lawyer filing. Worse, even a counsel's absolutely correct and timely document may be later rejected as a nullity. Why? Because court staff labored or waited days beyond receipt to look at it, and by then some limitation period had just expired. (The Court of Appeal Registry does not create such retroactive nullities.)

What counsel must draft and do is often not clear, because the dangerous restrictions are not in a statute and not in a Rule of Court, and sometimes not even in a Practice Direction. Some restrictions are mentioned only in sudden announcements on the King’s Bench website. Quite often those announcements are contrary to what the Rules of Court say.

Many lawyers are hoping for a definitive decision about all this by the Court of Appeal. Recent King’s Bench decisions on the topic often feature odd facts, and so are distinguishable. (See 2023 ABKB 691, 2024 #612, and 2025 206 and 289.)

Of course, valid actual legislation cannot be ignored or bypassed. But how to interpret it, or interpret a knotted web of instructions, is an important topic.

A recent King’s Bench decision distinguishes some other trial-court level precedents and disagrees with others. But it offers some suggestions for interpretation. And it gives several avenues of hope to counsel and litigants who did everything properly in time, yet still saw court staff later disqualify what counsel had earlier tendered in time. See Leyne v. Saint-Cyr 2025 ABKB 580 (Oct 6).

In the light of all this, I suggest six aims or principles to guide those drafting or interpreting statutes or Rules of Court about filing and service.

1. Court staff or even the Clerk of the Court should not be able to create new limitation periods not in any properly-enacted legislation, nor to shorten periods so enacted.

2. The court should sometimes be able to cure creation of nullities retroactively imposed after counsel had taken all appropriate steps in time.

3. Limitation periods for starting court proceedings should start running and end running, from and to knowable, defined events. Those might be objective fixed events, such as receiving a copy of an order. Or they might be things done by the party seeking to begin the court proceeding, such as giving the court a proposed document, or later giving the opponent a copy of the document.

4. The requirements for commencing a proceeding should all be ones possible to fulfil.

5. The court should be able to review or correct a decision by court staff or even the Clerk, especially if the decision was tardy, arbitrary, unreasonable, or plainly mistaken.

6. Statutes and the Rules of Court set the three methods for enacting or amending or repealing statutes and Rules of Court, and for publishing that. So, there should be limits on the ability of other documents to contradict statutes or Rules of Court. The Legislature, Rules Committee, and the Lieutenant-Governor, should not be thus bypassed.

In ancient Rome, laws were published by inscribing them in small letters high on a wall, so that (before the invention of the telescope) no one could read them. That then led to a rule of Roman law that legislation must be knowable by all citizens.

http://www.legalviews.com/coteopinion117.htm...

Hon. J.E. Côté

09/25/2025

ENCOURAGING SETTLEMENTS

We all wish that most litigants would settle before trial, and thus save themselves time and money, and save the overburdened courts a trial. The main Rule which encourages settling is R. 4.29. It awards or increases costs where someone betters an offer. But many counsel and even a few judges, have dodged that clearly-worded Rule. Some judges may think that the Rule is acceptable providing that they maintain full power to ignore it when they wish. In the past, some King's Bench judges tried to invent new excuses to ignore R. 4.29.

Every recent Court of Appeal decision is clear on this topic, though the relevant passages are buried toward the end of a long judgment. There the Court of Appeal confirmed a trial judge who followed R. 4.29 and refused to dilute R. 4.29 costs for “proportionality”. First, the Court of Appeal pointed out that costs for bettering an appeal come from a separate Rule (R. 4.29), not from the general costs Rules (¶ʼs 157 and 165). So therefore what R. 4.29 awards (such as double the ordinary costs) should not be weighed to see if it is “proportional”, the way that one would if there had been no offer to settle (¶ʼs 157 ff). That makes sense; by definition double costs are greater than ordinary costs.

The Court of Appeal also held that early offers to settle are proper, and indeed are one of the main aims of R. 4.29 (thus contradicting some King’s Bench decisions a few years ago) (¶ 157). (See also Stevenson & Côté Handbook R 4.29 nn. A, B.1, and F.1, and Droog v. Hamilton ( #2) 2025 ABCA 302 (Sep 8) (¶ 5).)

The Court of Appeal also pointed out that ignoring the costs consequences of an offer dictated by R. 4.29, would make formal offers meaningless (quoting an earlier Court of Appeal decision) (¶ 158). Rule 4.29 deliberately makes costs consequences more severe where someone has rejected an identifiable and sufficient compromise (¶ 158).

The judge cannot ignore or bypass R. 4.29 unless offer was tardy, or “special circumstances” exist (subrule (4), Stevenson & Côté Handbook R. 4.29 nn. C, F.1, F.2.). Double costs are not ordinarily such special circumstances (¶ 160).

So, one cannot dodge R. 4.29 when the outcome of the trial is hard to predict. Settling what is unclear is part of the aim of the Rules on offers to settle. Most lawsuits involve some element of unpredictability or luck. The more that is so, the more a trial resembles roulette. Conversely, the party who made and bettered an offer, often saw law or evidence or fairness which the other party did not see or did not fully appreciate. (See also Stevenson & Côté Handbook R. 4.29 n. B.1.)

This recent Court of Appeal decision is Signalta Res. v. Canadian Nat. Resources 2025 ABCA 306 (Sep 12).

http://www.legalviews.com/coteopinion115.htm...
Hon. J.E. Côté

09/02/2025

RELATED LAWSUITS IN DROP-DEAD APPLICATIONS

The Court of Appeal has corrected one test for suits inactive for three or more years. There has long been an exception to automatic dismissal of a suit after 3 years delay, for some cases where there are two similar lawsuits. Sometimes progress in one suit suffices and bars dismissing the other suit. There used to be a different test for two-suit cases. Now the test is the same as where there is only one suit.

When does progress within 3 years in one lawsuit bar dismissing another lawsuit? The answer used to be, when the two suits are inextricably linked.

But the nature of the relation between the two lawsuits can vary a lot. For example, are they similar because they have the same facts? Or the same law? Does one lawsuit's result actually govern the other lawsuit or a big part of it? Is one suit a counterclaim to the other?

The previous test of “inextricably linked” is now gone. It was a mistake. The court decision first using those words was merely reciting the facts in that case, not setting out a test for future cases. Now the test is the usual functional test. Does the activity within 3 years in the other lawsuit significantly advance progress in this lawsuit?

That advance might happen by deciding important facts or law. But it could also happen because the other lawsuit finds that a bar to or precondition for the inactive lawsuit suit, is present or not present. It is probably impossible to predict what other situations may arise where work, or a decision, in one lawsuit significantly advances another lawsuit. Some of the factors in the recent Center St. case helping to make the decision in the other suit significant, are interesting.

See Center St. L.P. v. Nuera Platinum Constr. 2025 ABCA 290 (Aug 26) (¶ʼs 28-39), and Round Hill Consulting v. Parkview Consulting 2025 ABCA 195 (Jun 3) (¶ 14).

Hon. J.E. Côté
http://www.legalviews.com/coteopinion114.htm...

08/18/2025

CORRECTING ERROR

An attentive skilled reader very recently was kind enough to point out an error in the Handbook. I wish that more readers would tell Juriliber when seeing apparent errors in the book.

The commentary on R. 3.3(1) talks about transferring a suit from the wrong judicial centre to the right one, citing R. 10.47. That citation is wrong, and it should refer to R. 10.49.

That is all that you need to know. But in case you are curious, this was not a typo. The first case cited on this topic was decided in 2004, under the former Rules of Court. It would not help readers much to leave in the book a citation of a long-gone old Rule. So whenever such things were found throughout the book, I converted the former Rule numbers to the new current ones. That was a big task, and was done along with making the book's table of concordance between the old Rule numbers and the new. It was based on the final version of the new Rules, as approved by various bodies. But when governments and multiple bodies are involved, final is often not final. Some parts of the new Rules were renumbered. But the renumbering was not announced. Over the ensuing year, we caught most of those changes, but evidently not this one.

Hon. J.E. Côté
http://www.legalviews.com/coteopinion113.htm...

08/08/2025

AMOUNT IN ISSUE

What is the amount “really” in issue in a lawsuit? If you are negotiating, or deciding whether to sue, that is a complex question. But when you deal with the court, that usually is governed by court records.

For effects of a formal offer, the issue is whether the offer is better or worse than the ultimate judgment of the court.

For party-party costs apart from any formal offer, the amount in issue is the amount which the plaintiff claimed in the statement of claim or counterclaim. But if the matter went to judgment, it is the amount set or confirmed by the court governs the level of the plaintiff’s costs. Often costs are awarded before there is any adjudication by the court of any amount. For example, for interlocutory costs before final judgment. Or where the suit is dismissed. Fixing any costs then payable by the plaintiff, needs some idea of the amount in issue in the suit, whether costs are set by a column of Schedule C, or by some other method such as a lump sum.

When the plaintiff (or plaintiff by counterclaim) is to pay some such costs, the amount in issue must be the amount which that paying party claimed in his or her statement of claim (or counterclaim). For various reasons, it is common to claim a little more than the likely outcome, or to claim the largest realistic amount. That modest excess may have some small effect on the level of costs payable by the plaintiff. But in more recent times, some plaintiffs claim huge sums, beyond what is at all reasonable or even possible.

It does not lie in the plaintiff's mouth, when he or she later must pay costs, to say that no one should have taken seriously that sum claimed. If unexpected evidence had come along later allowing a huge award, the plaintiff would usually have had no duty to give advance notice of that. The court could have given a huge award. Several kinds of disclosure (discovery) are allowed, but they do not reveal everything, such as an unexpected lay witness. Or a new precedent from some appellate court. Surprise at trial is not rare.

What if trial seems to be approaching, and the plaintiff does not want to risk paying large costs based on the large unreasonable size of the relief which he or she claims in the statement of claim? Then the plaintiff should amend the statement of claim to seek smaller relief. Absent such an amendment, the defendant and the defendant’s counsel cannot safely ignore the amount claimed in the pleadings as meaningless puffery. They cannot safely, do the minimum of discovery and trial preparation, brief very few witnesses, and send a lone junior to represent them at trial.

See JH Drilling v. Barsi Enterprises ( #2) 2025 ABKB 456 (Jul 31) (¶ʼs 18-19).

Hon. J.E. Côté
http://www.legalviews.com/coteopinion112.htm...

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