Issue Estoppel

Karunananthan v Zhong, 2015 CanLII 1023 (ON SCSM)

Issue estoppel

[19] The plaintiff submitted that the defendant is estopped from raising or re-litigating any issues in these proceedings that were before the SCJ in the Application. These include the patio rent, the insurance certificate, the purported assignment of the Lease, the loss of tenant and whether the plaintiff breached the Lease.

[20] In holding that the defendant unlawfully re-entered the Premises, Justice Low stated in her Low October Endorsement that “… default did not occur as defined in the lease, regardless of the merits of the landlord’s allegations of breach of covenant”.

[21] Three preconditions are required for the doctrine of issue estoppel to apply. These were discussed in Danyluk v. Ainsworth Technologies Inc., [2001] S.C.R. 460. The court stated at paragraph 25:

The preconditions to the operation of issue estoppel were set out by Dickson J. in

Angle, supra, at p. 254:

(a) that the same question has been decided;

(b) that the judicial decision which is said to create the estoppel was final; and,

(c) that the parties to the judicial decision or their privies were the same persons as the parties to the proceedings in which the estoppel is raised or their privies.