Carriero v. Carli (Ontario Small Claims Court)

The plaintiff rented a condominium unit to the defendants.  The landlord incurred significant costs (including chargebacks from the condominium corporation) due to the tenants’ breach of the condominium’s no dog rule.  The landlord sued the tenants for his losses. 

The Court ruled in favour of the landlord, but awarded only part of the amount claimed.  The Court said: 

• “There is no question that all of this…would have ended in April 2010 had the defendants complied with the demand for the removal of the dog.”
• “The plaintiff seeks indemnification and places the blame squarely on the defendants.  He is right and he ought to be compensated.  However, as referred to above, there has to be some responsibility placed upon the plaintiff to mitigate in these circumstances.  Aside from the fact that he took no action to remove the defendants from his premises, he never objected to these ‘overly aggressive’ lawyers’ fees (from the condominium corporation’s lawyers).”
• “Again, I express my concern that the condominium corporation was removed as a party to these proceedings, for…I would not have had any issue with drastically reducing the condominium’s recovery on its legal fees.”