Federal Court upholds refusal to compel answers to disputed questions in U of T copyright suit

In a copyright infringement proceeding, Canada’s Federal Court saw no palpable and overriding error in a motions judge’s ruling that two disputed questions sought a position on a legal issue or argument, which were inappropriate at the discovery stage.

In Governing Council of the University of Toronto v. Easy Group Inc. (Easy Education), 2025 FC 1728, the University of Toronto and three professors filed the underlying copyright infringement claim against the defendants, a group of companies offering tutoring services to the university’s Mandarin-speaking students.

The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants, without authorization, reproduced and distributed their original course materials – including lecture slides, syllabi, notes, and exams – for their tutoring business, thus breaching