Purina case awaits decision

Thursday, March 24, 2011

by SUSAN MANN

It could take six months before Agribrands Purina Canada Inc. and others obtain a decision on their appeal of a court ruling requiring them to pay more than $2 million in damages to a former feed dealership.

The Ontario Court of Appeal in Toronto heard the appeal launched by Purina, Ren’s Feed Supplies Ltd. and its owner, Walter Rendell Job, and the estate of Edward James McGrath on Feb. 14.

At issue was a January 2010 Ontario Superior Court ruling requiring the group to compensate the former Raywalt Feed Sales Ltd., a Purina horse feed dealership in Halton Region, for harm caused. Walter Kasemekas and the late Raymond Jackson owned the dealership. Jackson died on Jan. 10.

Purina president and general manager Charles Lapointe says the company launched the appeal because “there were multiple points in the original judgment we didn’t agree with.”

Lapointe declined to elaborate saying “I think at this stage I would prefer to wait for the judgment and see how it’s going to go.”

He says he didn’t attend the appeal hearing.

Walter Kasemekas, who did attend, says the lawyers submitted written arguments plus there were oral presentations before the Appeal Court judges.

Kasemekas says it’s hard to tell how the appeal went. “The trial lasted two weeks and you’re there for one day. It all depends on the written stuff.”

Kasemekas says “it’s all about legal precedents . . . It’s not a trial where there’s witnesses or anything interesting going on. It’s a bunch of lawyers talking about case law.”

In January 2010, Ontario Superior Court Judge Michael Quigley ruled that the brothers proved their conspiracy claims against Purina and the others and they are entitled to damages because of those actionable wrongs.

The business failed in 1992 just one year after opening mainly because Purina allowed a former feed dealer, Ren’s, to continue selling in the territory reserved for Raywalt, the judge wrote in his ruling. BF