How I wish I could be a fly on the wall at L.H. Gray and Son Limited, Burnbrae Farms Limited, the EFO (Egg Farmers of Ontario) offices or even at Carolynne Griffith’s (Chairperson of the EFO Board of Directors) kitchen! I would imagine that the news of the combination of the lawsuits in which they’re involved was quite a shock, but definitely not a Halloween prank. The written decision is definitely a ‘legal’ read but I did find a couple of things quite interesting.
– The first item – The EFO lawyer, Mr. Spurr stated that the lawsuits were not connected at all and should not be combined – and is “a figment of the plaintiff’s (Sweda Farms) imagination”. The judge responds with, “In my view, these allegations (made by Sweda Farms), are sufficient to draw the connection between the two actions. They are not obviously false or implausible.” ‘Hallelujah’ to that conclusion. Now who’s having imagination problems?
– And secondly, the judge awarded costs to the plaintiff (Sweda Farms) which means that egg producer levy monies are being used to pay for even higher EFO legal costs. ‘Ouch’ to that conclusion. EFO should have gotten out while the gettin’ was good.
In light of this decision, is there anyone other than me, thinking how foolish the EFO looks for not accepting the opportunity of getting out of this legal action altogether? Those current court costs and legal costs are merely a drop in the bucket compared to what even a partial win for Sweda farms might be. Have the egg producers been given the opportunity to decide on withdrawing from the action? Were they given adequate information to make a decision? Maybe the information was included in the minutes of the EFO meetings? Not gonna happen folks! EFO doesn’t provide minutes to their egg producers. This lack of information could end up protecting the rear ends of the un-informed producers in the future. Has the time come for the egg producers to unite and hold the EFO Board of Directors accountable for staying in this legal turmoil? I think it’s way past time!
Soon the decision for the admissibility of all the whistleblower documents will be determined. I can hardly wait! Stay tuned for that decision. In the meantime, I guess I can expect the price of eggs to go up, eh? Gotta love supply management and the corruption that it can create.
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