Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Burnbrae wins in appeal court

Burnbrae Farms has won in appeal court where Sweda Farms hoped to over-turn a decision to remove it from a lawsuit against L.H. Gray and Son Ltd., the Ontario egg marketing board and Burnbrae.

Sweda’s lawyer, Donald Good, argued that the three were involved in a conspiracy to drive Sweda out of the egg-grading business. It has, indeed, sold out.

Good argued that the three colluded to fix prices, to make deals about who would serve which major retailers, cheated on egg grading and shipped Sweda horrible-quality eggs to keep Sweda from seeking supplementary import permits.

The three judges wrote that Good was too late in asking Burnbrae to furnish additional documents related to the lawsuit. They noted that 17 months passed. and they said Good could have sought a court order to have Burnbrae furnish the documents.

They also refused to hear additional information from Norman Bourdeau, a whistleblower who took electronic data from Gray to show it was cheating and conspiring with Burnbrae and the egg board.

They also refused to hear from Svante Lind, owner of Best Choice. They said they could not add anything worthwhile to the appeal.

They also dismissed an appeal against the $85,00 legal bills for Burnbrae that Lind must pay.


The three judges on the case were “John Laskin, R.A, Blair and S. E. Pepall.