After nearly a decade of delay, the brokerage's key witness can no longer testify
A real estate brokerage will not have to defend a decade-old wrongful dismissal claim, after an Ontario judge refused to revive the case in part because the worker's supervisor, the company's key witness, can no longer testify.
On June 8, 2026, Associate Justice Jolley of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice dismissed Hooshfar Rokni Pezeshkian's motion to set aside the registrar's dismissal of his action against Re/Max Realtron Realty Inc. The ruling leaves the claim permanently dismissed and orders Pezeshkian to pay the brokerage $23,000 in all-inclusive costs.
Pezeshkian commenced his action in 2015. The registrar dismissed it for delay on Oct. 7, 2024, an order he says he learned of only in May 2025 when he tried to file his trial record. He brought this motion to have the dismissal set aside and the action restored.
He had obtained three separate timetable orders, in 2021, 2022, and 2023, each meant to push the case toward trial. After each one, the court found, the deadlines slipped. Associate Justice Jolley found his failure to set the action down for trial by the final extended deadline of May 31, 2024, critical.
The years the plaintiff didn’t explain
Associate Justice Jolley focused on a stretch the plaintiff never accounted for. While his submissions explained the gap between 2021 and 2025, the six years from 2015 to 2021 went unexplained, with little happening beyond a single affidavit of documents at the four-year mark.
In the court's view, that silence weighed against him. Associate Justice Jolley found that this lack of explanation "strongly favours dismissing the plaintiff's motion, if not being fatal to it," and held that the timetable orders did not erase the earlier years a plaintiff is required to explain.
The judge also noted that once a case passes the five-year mark without being set down for trial, the delay edges toward the inordinate and prejudice is presumed. With the principle of finality weighing against reopening the file, the court found the plaintiff faced a steep test to restore it.
A supervisor who can no longer testify
The underlying claim was for wrongful dismissal. Pezeshkian also sought $250,000 in punitive and aggravated damages, alleging that his supervisor, Mr. Pilarski, asked him to sign a resignation letter and replaced him with another employee when he refused, and that Mr. Pilarski made disparaging comments about him. Those allegations were never tested.
The defendant pleaded that Pezeshkian was not an employee but an independent contractor under a signed agreement. Because he intended to argue he was in fact an employee, the court noted, he would likely testify about the control exercised over his work, and the brokerage said it needed Mr. Pilarski to refute that account. Their dealings were largely verbal, and Mr. Pilarski was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2019, with symptoms affecting his speech and memory from July 2021.
Associate Justice Jolley found the plaintiff had not shown the brokerage would escape real prejudice without that evidence, and concluded the registrar's dismissal should stand. The motion was dismissed with costs. By the time it was heard, the court noted, "As at the date of this motion, Mr. Pilarski is unable to express himself verbally."
See Pezeshkian v Re/Max Realtron Realty Inc., 2026 ONSC 3382 (CanLII)
