If one were to describe the progression of a civil lawsuit, from its start to finish, as akin to a walk from one side of a field to the other, with the determination of the parties’ legal rights awaiting on the far side of the field, then litigants increasingly are coming to see that walk as one involving small, tentative, money-draining steps, with each side probing the ground ahead, through interlocutory motions, to ensure no tactical obstacle or hidden mine lurks beneath the surface of the field.
Mr. Justice David Brown in York U. v. Markicivec, 2013 ONSC 4311