Background
Lidija Tomas appealed to the Court of Appeal for Ontario from an order of Justice Jennifer K. Penman of the Superior Court of Justice, dated April 16, 2025. The respondents were Jacque Turnbull, Key Access Financial Inc., Martin Theriault and Theriault Holdings Inc. The appeal was heard on October 30, 2026, by Lauwers, George and Rahman JJ.A.
Tomas acted in person. Erin Hoops and Darya Rahbar represented Turnbull and Key Access Financial Inc., while Marvin Shifman and Colina King represented Theriault and Theriault Holdings Inc. The motion judge had dismissed Tomas’s action as time barred. The Court of Appeal’s brief reasons identify the procedural history underlying that dismissal: the motion judge noted that Tomas had not complied with the rules in any substantive way.
More specifically, the motion judge’s reasons relied on a deemed admission resulting from Tomas’s failure to respond to a request to admit. Tomas then failed to bring a motion to remedy that problem, even with the assistance of the court in case management. The appellate decision does not set out the underlying facts of the dispute, the precise content of the deemed admission, or the applicable limitation period and its dates.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeal found no error in the motion judge’s decision to dismiss the action as time barred. Its reasoning began with the obligations and expectations applicable to self-represented litigants. Citing Pintea v. Johns, 2017 SCC 23, [2017] 1 S.C.R. 470, the court acknowledged that it must be solicitous of self-represented litigants. It added that courts can reasonably expect such litigants to learn about and comply with the Rules of Civil Procedure, R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 194, and decisions by judges.
Applying that balance to the record described in its reasons, the panel emphasized Tomas’s lack of substantive compliance with the rules, as noted by the motion judge. It also identified the sequence underlying the motion judge’s reliance on the deemed admission: no response to the request to admit, followed by no motion to remedy the resulting problem despite case-management assistance. The court’s conclusion was directed to the motion judge’s dismissal of this action; it did not announce a general rule that every failure to answer a request to admit requires dismissal.
The court awarded costs to the respondents on a partial-indemnity basis. If the parties cannot agree on costs, the court will accept brief written submissions, limited to five pages, within ten days of the decision. The reasons were signed by P. Lauwers J.A., J. George J.A. and M. Rahman J.A.
Key Takeaways
- The Court of Appeal found no error in the dismissal of Tomas’s action as time barred.
- Solicitude for self-represented litigants under Pintea v. Johns coexists with a reasonable expectation that they comply with procedural rules and judicial decisions.
- The procedural history included an unanswered request to admit, a resulting deemed admission, and no motion to remedy the problem despite case-management assistance.
- The respondents received partial-indemnity costs, with a five-page limit and ten-day timetable for written submissions if the parties cannot agree.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates the limits of procedural accommodation for self-represented litigants. The court recognized the Supreme Court’s guidance in Pintea, but treated that guidance as compatible with enforcing compliance with the Rules of Civil Procedure and court decisions. On the record summarized by the panel, case-management assistance did not lead Tomas to bring a motion addressing the deemed admission.
For civil practitioners, the case is a concise reminder that requests to admit and deemed admissions can become central to later procedural rulings. Its holding is nevertheless tied to this appeal and the motion judge’s reasoning: the court did not provide a broader analysis of limitation-period law or prescribe an automatic consequence for every unanswered request to admit.