Commercial Litigation and Dispute Resolution Blog

On September 16, 2014, I blogged concerning the filing of a Notice of Civil Claim in British Columbia in Adolfo Garcia v. Tahoe Resources Inc.  That case concerns a claim against a Canadian parent company for mining activities conducted through a foreign subsidiary in Guatemala.  I noted a trend towards seeking redress against Canadian parent mining companies in Canadian ...

It is common for contracts to contain exclusion clauses limiting the liability of one party in the event of a breach.  Professional service providers often seek to limit their liability to the fees paid to them.  Movers limit their exposure to the value of the goods transported.  Contracts for the sale of land generally cap a purchaser’s remedy for breach to the return of the ...

In a decision released November 10, 2014, the BC Court of Appeal rejected an attempt to create a novel common law defence in the law of defamation against so-called SLAPP suits. In Northwest Organics, Limited Partnership v. Maguire, 2014 BCCA 454, the court upheld the chambers judge’s decision and declined to radically change the law of defamation by introducing such a ...

British Columbia has 28 Supreme Court registries scattered around the eight judicial districts (known as “counties”) being Cariboo, Kootenay, Nanaimo, Prince Rupert, Vancouver, Victoria, Westminster and Yale.  Ordinarily, a civil claim or petition can be commenced in whichever of those registries the claimant chooses.  However, for some types of claims there are ...

In an earlier blog post, we reviewed what the Supreme Court of Canada heralded as a “shift in culture” in Hryniak v. Mauldin, 2014 SCC 7 with respect to the availability of summary judgment.  While we had expected BC Courts to therefore be even more receptive to summary adjudications than they had in past, there was some initial hesitation in Alberta given the difference ...

On November 13, 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada released its much anticipated decision in Bhasin v. Hrynew, 2014 SCC 71.  In its decision, the Supreme Court of Canada for the first time expressly recognized “good faith” as an organizing principle in the operation of contract law in Canadian common law provinces.  This is a significant alteration to the law of contracts in ...

A recent decision of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice shows that the outcome of important questions of statutory or contractual interpretation can sometimes turn on the meaning of the smallest and most ordinary words. As the court noted in the opening words of its judgment in Young Men’s Christian Association of Greater Toronto v. Municipal Property Assessment ...

One of the most exasperating aspects of civil litigation for clients is the issue of court ordered costs. Ordinarily, the party that wins a case is entitled to have their “costs” paid by the other side. The court’s ability to award costs is discretionary and, as a result, often difficult to predict.

There are, generally speaking, two types of costs awards: “party and ...

On October 27 and 28, the British Columbia Court of Appeal heard the appeal in Equustek Solutions Inc. v. Jack, 2014 BCSC 1063, which will have significant implications for the ability of courts to deal with online wrongdoing, and which raises questions of how to balance a Court’s jurisdiction – and respect for the jurisdiction of other courts – with the worldwide reach ...

A recent decision from the British Columbia Supreme Court is a reminder that interlocutory restraints on speech are possible in Canada, albeit in rare circumstances.

In Richardson v. Hunter, 2014 BCSC 1960, the court issued an interlocutory injunction to restrain the defendant from publishing words that suggest that the plaintiff engaged in criminal conduct. The remedy ...