Peter A. Simm has won motions for summary judgment or partial summary judgment, either serving as co-counsel or by drafting the Law portion of the Moving Party’s winning Factum.

Motions brought under Rule 21.01(b) — to strike a pleading as legally untenable — can also be crucially important. Simm has likewise won such motions, or seen major claims against his clients discontinued when his Factum was served.

Other types of motion may also have immense consequences for the litigation. For example, Simm was co-counsel for the successful Moving Party (Plaintiff) in a motion (on notice) for Anton Pillar orders and interlocutory injunctions against two corporate Defendants and four individual Defendants in TSI (No. 1).  In his Endorsement granting the motion, Justice Ricchetti wrote [at para. 86]: “In this case, I am satisfied that the interlocutory injunction is essentially a final determination in the action with respect to most of the Defendants.”

In a dispute touching more than one jurisdiction, a forum non conveniens  motion would, if successful, end a lawsuit in Ontario. As co-counsel for the Responding Party (Plaintiff), Simm successfully resisted such a motion in Machado,   and that decision was upheld on appeal in the Divisional Court.

It is not uncommon for an application for judicial review to be quashed as “premature”, typically because the statutory tribunal’s internal processes have not yet yielded a final decision. In McKay-Clements,  there was an extraordinarily unusual twist. Simm was retained by the statutory regulator of a self-governing health profession to respond to a JR application. His analysis of their unique statutory regime determined — to his client’s surprise — that the seemingly reasonable structure of their complaints/discipline process was ultra vires, the impugned decision accordingly was a nullity, and judicial review was thus premature. The Court agreed, and Simm’s motion to quash efficiently ended the application.