“Having found that the family law application and the civil action have a question of fact or law in common, I must now decide whether it would be appropriate to consolidate the two proceedings or to order that they be tried together. There are many good reasons to order consolidation or trial together, among them, to avoid a multiplicity of related proceedings, to avoid inconsistent findings, to reduce costs and save time for the parties and to save court time and related resources: Canadian National Railway v. Holmes, 2011 ONSC 4837.
In Canadian National Railway v. Holmes, at para. 44, D. M. Brown J., as he was then, referred to 1014864 Ontario Ltd. v. 1721789 Ontario Inc., 2010 ONSC 3306 at para. 18 and a list compiled by Master Dash of factors a court may consider when faced with a request to consolidate proceedings or to order trial together. The factors, which may or may not apply depending on the circumstances, include:
a) the extent to which the issues in each action are interwoven;
b) whether the same damages are sought in both actions, in whole or in part;
c) whether damages overlap and whether a global assessment of damages is required;
d) whether there is expected to be a significant overlap of evidence or of witnesses among the various actions;
e) whether the parties the same;
f) whether the lawyers are the same;
g) whether there is a risk of inconsistent findings or judgment if the actions are not joined;
h) whether the issues in one action are relatively straight forward compared to the complexity of the other actions;
i) whether a decision in one action, if kept separate and tried first would likely put an end to the other actions or significantly narrow the issues for the other actions or significantly increase the likelihood of settlement;
j) the litigation status of each action;
k) whether there is a jury notice in one or more but not all of the actions;
l) whether, if the actions are combined, certain interlocutory steps not yet taken in some of the actions, such as examinations for discovery, may be avoided by relying on transcripts from the more advanced action;
m) the timing of the motion and the possibility of delay;
n) whether any of the parties will save costs or alternatively have their costs increased if the actions are tried together;
o) any advantage or prejudice the parties are likely to experience if the actions are kept separate or if they are to be tried together;
p) whether trial together of all of the actions would result in undue procedural complexities that cannot easily be dealt with by the trial judge;
q) whether the motion is brought on consent or over the objection of one or more parties.”