JD students Amanda Kennedy and Kate Shackleton
The Tort Moot is a trilateral partnership between all eight Ontario law schools, the Ontario Bar Association (OBA) Insurance Law Section, and volunteers from the bar and bench, the “Tort Moot” is designed to promote advocacy and excellence in the fields of tort, insurance and health law.
This is the second year U of T participated in this moot. Unlike other moots, the Tort Moot is held completely online: teams make all their submissions virtually. While this clearly means that the mooters do not enjoy the experience of arguing in a courtroom, it also exposes them to a now-common litigation medium.
The moot features only one round of arguments — each adjudicated by a different set of judges — prior to the elimination rounds. The semi-finalists are selected based on the raw scores assigned by the judges of their respective preliminary round, and the finalists are selected based on which of the semi-finalist appellant and respondent teams have the highest raw score. Unlike most other tournaments, the mooters only prepare one side of the argument.
As with last year's tournament, the moot addressed a colourful topic based on a hypothetical appeal of the ONCA's decision in Paton Estate v Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (Fallsview Casino Resort and OLG Casino Brantford), 2016 ONCA 458. Second-year JD students Amanda Kennedy and Kate Shackleton argued for the trust beneficiaries/respondents, and Cassandra Griffin and Damian Fitz for the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation/appellants.
Photo L-R: Alex Nyikos, Cassandra Griffin, Amanda Kennedy, Kate Shackleton, Damian Fitz and Tiger Zheng.
Although the case itself centred on a motion to strike, the moot focused on whether Ontario casinos owed a duty of care in negligence to i) a problem gambler who lost a substantial sum at their facilities and ii) trust beneficiaries whose funds the problem gambler — a legal assistant at a small law firm — had stolen and gamed away at the casino; and on whether the casinos in question had had constructive knowledge that they had received misappropriated trust funds.
Shackleton and Kennedy were awarded the Best Factum prize, with The Lerners Scholarship for best factum going to Shackleton and the McCarthy Tétrault Scholarship for Best Factum awarded to Kennedy.
The team was coached by Adjunct Moot Advisor, Christopher McKenna, a litigator with Bennett Jones litigator and third-year student coaches Alex Nyikos and Tiger Zheng.
In appreciation of the honourable justices that took part in the competition, the Tort Moot Committee will donate to Lawyers Feed the Hungry. Awardees will be recognized at an awards reception hosted by Howie Sacks and Henry LLP on May 1.
