Source: http://isthatlegal.ca/index.php?name=Attornment
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 07:10:45+00:00

Document:
Attornment is a jurisdictional concept. One speaks of someone 'attorning' to the jurisdiction of a tribunal (the term as used here includes a court), typically the tribunal's geographical jurisdiction, by continuing to participate in the procedure of the tribunal after commencement (typically, being served with a Statement of Claim).
. Fraser v 4358376 Canada Inc.
 We agree with the appellants that the motion judge erred in law by concluding that the steps they took amounted to attornment. In our view, all the steps taken by the appellants are more properly characterized as procedural steps taken within the confines of the jurisdiction motion.
 By asking for a temporary stay, the appellants were asserting their position that proper resolution of their jurisdictional motion required that the corporate defendants be present before the court. The temporary stay they requested was for that specific and limited purpose.
 In our view, a party who challenges the jurisdiction of the court is entitled to insist upon a proper procedural foundation for the determination of the challenge. Provided that the party’s steps request no more than that, they do not amount to attornment.
 As the motion judge decided that the appellants had attorned by seeking a temporary stay, he did not deal with the argument that by asking the court to strike out the amended statement of claim the appellants had attorned. He dealt with that request on the merits and dismissed it.
 We find it difficult to understand how the appellants could ask the court to strike the amended statement of claim on the basis that the amendment had followed the original jurisdiction motion since it was only through the amendment that they became parties with an interest in proceeding with the motion. We agree with the motion judge’s reasons dismissing that motion on its merits. On the issue of attornment, however, we conclude that the motion to strike the statement of claim, although ill-founded, was entirely based and dependent upon the appellants’ contention that the courts of Ontario had no jurisdiction to entertain the claim. Like the motion for the temporary stay, the motion to strike the claim was nothing more than a request to have the jurisdictional motion proceed on a proper procedural foundation.
 We recognize that decisions of this and other courts have taken a broad view of the kind of steps taken in a proceeding that amount to attornment. See, for example: Wolfe v. Pickar, 2011 ONCA 347 (CanLII), 2011 ONCA 347, 332 D.L.R. (4th) 157; Mid-Ohio Imported Car C. v. Tri-K Investments Ltd. 1995 CanLII 2084 (BC CA), (1995), 129 D.L.R. (4th) 181 (B.C.C.A.). However, the test expressed in those cases is whether the party “…appears in court and goes beyond challenging the jurisdiction of the court based on jurisdiction simpliciter and forum non conveniens”: Wolfe v. Pickar, at para. 44 (emphasis added).
 We know of no authority for the proposition that procedural steps brought within the confines of a jurisdiction motion dealing solely with the mechanics of having that motion heard in a proper procedural setting amount to attornment. In our view that is all that occurred in this case. The appellants did not “go beyond challenging the jurisdiction” and the motion judge erred in law in concluding otherwise.
. Essar Steel Algoma Inc.
 Over the past decade, judges of this court sitting in Chambers on stay motions have expressed different views about whether a party risks attorning to the jurisdiction of the Ontario court by performing court-ordered procedural steps in the face of the party’s on-going challenge to the court’s jurisdiction. Some decisions have viewed such participation as risking attornment, thereby creating some risk of irreparable harm: M.J. Jones Inc. v. Kingsway General Insurance Co. (2004), 2004 CanLII 6211 (ON CA), 72 O.R. (3d) 68, 242 D.L.R. (4th) 139 (C.A.), at paras. 27-31; Stuart Budd & Sons Ltd. v. IFS Vehicle Distributors ULC, 2014 ONCA 546 (CanLII), 122 O.R. (3d) 472, at paras. 29-36. On the other hand, in Van Damme v. Gelber, 2013 ONCA 388 (CanLII), 115 O.R. (3d) 470, at paras. 21-23, the court minimized any such risk from court-ordered participation, and in Yaiguaje v. Chevron Corp., at para. 11, MacPherson J.A. regarded any risk as a weak factor in the irreparable harm analysis.
 I need not express a view on the effect of court-ordered participation in a proceeding on a party’s ability to continue to advance a jurisdictional challenge because decisions of this court uniformly have held that where the responding party provides the court with undertakings of the kind given by Essar in this case, the undertakings significantly reduce or remove the risk of irreparable harm.
 Laskin J.A. did not consider the delivery of a statement of defence or participation in discoveries outside of the “formal bounds” of the court proceedings as amounting to attornment: at para. 31. Similar undertakings given in Yaiguaje v. Chevron Corp., led MacPherson J.A., at paras. 11 and 16, to follow the decision in BTR Global and conclude that the moving parties had made a very weak showing that they would suffer irreparable harm.
 In light of the undertakings given by Essar to the court in the present case, I conclude that Cliffs have not demonstrated that they would suffer irreparable harm if a stay pending appeal is not granted.

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