There has been an ongoing controversy in Canada’s courts over whether the doctrine of ‘waiver of tort’ was sufficient to create a cause of action on its own. The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) had briefly considered the issue in Pro-Sys Consultants Ltd. v Microsoft Corporation, however, this decision did not end the debate, since […]
Category Archives: Commercial Litigation
The Duties of Good Faith & Honest Performance
The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) originally created a duty of “good faith in contractual performance” in its 2014 decision of Bhasin v. Hrynew. In the decision, the SCC recognized an organizing principle of good faith that parties generally must observe in order to perform their contractual duties honestly and reasonably and not capriciously or […]
Liability for COVID-19 Transmissions Limited as Part of Ontario’s Recovery
Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney General has been anticipating a potential rush to litigation by parties seeking damages for injuries suffered as a result of COVID-19. In order to combat this, the Attorney General proposed a new piece of legislation, called the Supporting Ontario’s Recovery Act (the “Act”), which received royal assent on November 20th. […]
The Duty of Care and Pure Economic Loss, Pt. 2
As mentioned at the end of our last blog post, we are continuing the discussion of the recent Supreme Court of Canada decision 1688782 Ontario Inc. v. Maple Leaf Foods Inc, a class action by a group of franchisees against a supplier. The case dealt with a legal concept referred to as ‘pure economic loss’, […]
The Duty of Care and Pure Economic Loss: Part 1
In a previous blog post, we outlined the issues in the case of 1688782 Ontario Inc. v. Maple Leaf Foods Inc, a class action by a group of franchisees against a supplier. The case dealt with a legal concept referred to as ‘pure economic loss’, meaning that the plaintiffs had clearly suffered a loss but […]
The High Cost of Self-Representation in Litigation
There is an old adage that says that any lawyer who represents themselves has a fool for a client, but this can also apply to non-lawyers as well. Some litigants choose to represent themselves in civil court matters, usually for one of two reasons. Either they are unable to afford the costs of a lawyer […]
Constructive Trusts: A Remedy for Wrongful Conduct
Constructive trusts are sometimes used by a court to impose a remedy for a party who was deprived of their rights to property via the wrongful or fraudulent conduct of a third party. This is an equitable remedy created through the common law to make the situation right, as though the wrongful conduct had not […]
Derivative Contracts: Speculation or Hedging?
The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) recently released an important taxation decision dealing with how to characterize capital and income losses under a derivative contract. In MacDonald v. Canada, a taxpayer sought to deduct payments he had made to his bank as part of a loan arrangement. His position was that the payments were income […]
A Principled Exception to the Hearsay Rule
Hearsay evidence is defined as an out of court statement being used to prove the truth of its content. If the issue is the colour of a streetlight, an example of hearsay evidence would be using the earlier statement of a witness whose whereabouts were now unknown. The absence of the observer means there can […]
The Condominium Act & The Oppression Remedy
We have previously written about the remedy of oppression, and how it applies to the actions taken by a corporation that cause harm to individual shareholders, officers, directors, creditors or debtors. The remedy applied will depend on the type of oppressive conduct, but can include restraint fo the conduct, removal of officers or directors, and […]