The plaintiff and defendants entered into an agreement whereby, in consideration of a loan by the plaintiff, the defendants granted a mortgage over the defendant vessel and agreed to make its catch available to the plaintiff for one year following the year the loan was repaid. The loan was repaid but the defendants failed to sell their catch to the plaintiff. As a result, the plaintiff commenced proceedings in the Supreme Court of Newfoundland for a mandatory injunction requiring the defendants to sell their catch to it. That injunction was refused on the grounds that there was no irreparable harm. The plaintiff then commenced these proceedings and arrested the vessel in Federal Court. The defendants brought this motion to stay the Federal Court proceedings on the grounds that parallel proceedings existed in the Supreme Court of Newfoundland.
Decision: Motion dismissed.
Held: The plaintiff was not acting in a vexatious manner when it sought to arrest the vessel after failing to obtain the injunction. The Supreme Court of Newfoundland has no specific admiralty rules dealing with arrest and an injunction is a very different procedure from an action in rem. It is not unusual for a party to take action in the Federal Court merely to obtain security. It would be inappropriate to stay the Federal Court proceedings at this time although at some point in time one of the actions must be stayed.