Two of the Defendants in this matter had filed an Application to strike the Plaintiffs’ Statement of Claim pursuant to Rule 3.68, which gives the Court authority to strike all or any part of a claim.

The Defendants had previously requested that the Court review the Statement of Claim under paragraph 5 of Civil Practice Note No. 7 (“CPN7”) as a possible Apparently Vexatious Application or Proceeding. The Court conducted that review and determined that the Statement of Claim should be subject to a CPN7 show-cause document-based review which was to take the form of a written submission (the “Written Submission”) of no more than 10 pages.

Prior to the date the Court ordered the Plaintiffs complete the Written Submission, the Plaintiffs filed a lengthy document in Form 12 called “Reply to Responses” (the “Reply”). The document purported to be a Reply to the “Statement of Defence/Responses of the… Defendants.” As the Reply was filed prior to the date the Court ordered the Written Submissions, the Court did not consider it to constitute the Plaintiffs’ Written Submission. The Plaintiffs failed to file a separate Written Submission responding to the Court’s questions.

Rule 3.33 specifies that a Reply in Form 12 may be filed by the Plaintiff in reply to a Statement of Defence. However, none of the named Defendants in this Action had filed a Statement of Defence. As a result, the filing of the Plaintiffs’ Reply was improper. The Court nonetheless allowed the Defendants to respond to the Reply and took both the Reply and the responses into consideration in determining whether the Action should be struck.

The Court ultimately found that since the Plaintiffs’ failed to address any of the Court’s concerns that were meant to be addressed in the Written Submission, the Statement of Claim was struck immediately pursuant to Rule 3.68. The Plaintiffs’ approval of the form of Order was dispensed with under Rule 9.4(2)(c).