recently made an assignment into bankruptcy and finds himself as a defendant in this and at least one other lawsuit brought by the plaintiff for several million dollars.
[2] In all of the actions brought by the plaintiff, their claim is for the return of money which they loaned to the defendant in his practice as a personal injury lawyer and in essence was to be used to pay for plaintiff’s disbursements such as expert reports.
[3] There is a separate loan for each client of Mr. Ferro’s, for whom Mr. Ferro sought funding. Each loan was between the plaintiff and Mr. Ferro personally.
[4] Each loan was the subject of a separate loan agreement.
[5] The sections of the loan agreements that the court has to deal with are the same for all six of the loans which are encompassed by this action.
[6] A summary judgment motion was brought before Justice Hambly on September 21, 2012.
[7] Justice Hambly gave Summary Judgment on two loans known as Badini and Bell. Another loan known as Petit was subsequently paid. The only matter outstanding on those three loans is the issue of costs.
[8] Justice Hambly further ordered that the loans known as Fraser, Bilotta and Ryckman would proceed to the trial of an issue.
[9] The issue that Justice Hambly ordered to be tried, was the meaning of “transfer of the client’s file” in the loan contracts.
[71] Based on the totality of the evidence, and also the lack of evidence from Mr. Ferro, I find Mr. Ferro’s position throughout to be disingenuous and an extremely sad commentary on how a senior member of the bar dealt with a corporation that he sought out and contracted with to allow him to carry on his personal injury practice.
[72] As a result of my reasons the plaintiff shall have judgment against the defendant as follows:
A. the defendants shall pay to the plaintiff the amount of $110,478.26 on the Fraser loan which bears interest at the rate of 19.5% compounded monthly or the effective annual rate of 21.34% commencing June 15, 2015
B. the defendant shall pay to the plaintiff the amount of $103,579.69 old on the Bilotta loan, which bears interest at 19.5% compounded monthly or the effective annual rate of 21.34% commencing June 15, 2015
C. the defendant shall pay to the plaintiff the amount of $29,796.51 owned on the Reichman loans, which bear interest at the rate of 21% compounded monthly or the effective annual rate of 23.14% commencing June 15, 2015
D. the defendant’s counterclaim is hereby dismissed
E. the defendants shall pay the plaintiff costs for bringing this action to enforce its 6 loans.