The last court hearing 

MTCC No. 943 v. Khan
Court File No: CV-12-9565
Date: 04 June 2013

When MTCC # 943 realized that they were victims of fraud, the corporation sued Manzoor Khan, Channel Property Management and all parties that may have been involved.

By the spring of 2013, all the parties settled except for two defendents.

Mihaela Jurkovic and Mohammad Irfan Naeem, were both former employees of Channel who was the property management company at MTCC No. 943. (Mr. Naeem was the property manager.)

When MTCC No. 943 advised that it wished to discontinue its action against them, both sought their costs. A settlement was reached with Jurkovic in which she was paid costs of $6,500.00.

In the beginning, Mr. Naeem’s lawyer claimed about $9,000 in costs.

Then, a week before the court hearing, Naeem’s counsel issued a new invoice which billed his client $41,505.88 in fees, together with $160.25 in disbursements. That figure was then dropped to $35,000.

The condo suggested $6,500, the same as what they paid Mihaela Jurkovic.

In court Justice Brown asked:
"How, then, does Naeem arrive at a claim of some $51,000 or $35,000? On May 23, 2013, a week before the hearing of this motion, Naeem’s counsel issued Invoice No. 4266 which billed his client $41,505.88 in fees, together with $160.25 in disbursements. No evidence was filed to explain three groups of work which, according to the time and disbursements ledger, constituted the work included on Invoice No. 4266."

Justice Brown then gives a detailed reasoning on why he refuses to accept any of the costs listed in Invoice # 4266. He then goes on to say:

"That then leaves for consideration the approximately $9,000.00 billed or docketed for work performed up to the filing of the last pleading. In the circumstances of this case, where all parties except Mr. Khan were victims and the plaintiff had a bona fide basis to assert a claim against Mr. Naeem, any allowance of costs of discontinuance should be on a partial indemnity scale, or approximately $5,000.00, all in. Although I am strongly tempted not to award any costs given the extravagant cost over-reach revealed in the recent docket entries on counsel’s ledger placed before me, I suspect that such an approach did not result from any instructions from the client.

Consequently, I grant the plaintiff leave to discontinue this action against Mr. Naeem upon the payment to him of costs in the amount of $5,000.00,
all in."

Wow! It appears that the judge thought that the defence lawyer was trying to soak the condominium for greatly inflated legal fees and so Mr. Naeem came close to getting nothing.

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