At the trial of Pitney Bowes of Canada v. Noia, 2009 CanLII 63372 (ON S.C.), Mr. Justice Douglas K. Gray awarded to the plaintiff damages of $13,400.57 which was slightly more than half of the amount that had been claimed. The action had been brought under Rule 76, which deals with simplified procedure.
The plaintiff sought partial indemnity fees of $11,806.52 and disbursements of $1,553.53.
His Honour said that the claim for costs was “grossly excessive”. He said that many of the disbursements (which included searches, photocopies, courier, process server, binding combs, tabs, postage, and travel) had not been sufficiently particularlized and were, in any event, properly part of a law firm’s overhead.
As for the fees, Justice Gray said that he would have been inclined to award $2,000 if the claim had been fully successful. Since judgment had issued for only about half of the claim, he reduced that amount to $1,000 and reduced the disbursements from $1,553.53 to $600.
In making his ruling, His Honour relied on the proportionality principle that is now “encompassed within Rule 57.01(1)(0.b)”. He remarked that “The purpose of the Simplified Rules is to make small cases easier to manage, faster, and less expensive. If the Rules are to accomplish their objective, the Court must fix costs that are proportionate to what is at stake. If the plaintiff were to be compensated by the defendant for all of the costs claimed here, the objective of the Rules would be defeated.”