Christine G. Carter

The City of Kawartha Lakes appealed a decision of the Environmental Review Tribunal upholding a Ministry of the Environment order requiring the City to remediate environmental contamination on its property.

The contamination was caused by a furnace oil leak from an adjacent private property.

The City argued it was an innocent owner and the Tribunal erred by excluding evidence regarding who was at fault for the spill.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding that the Tribunal's decision to exclude fault evidence was reasonable, as the Environmental Protection Act's primary purpose is environmental protection, and fault-finding is better suited for civil courts.

The plaintiff municipality sought to recover environmental remediation costs following a residential furnace oil spill that migrated onto public lands and into a lake.

Several defendants, including an insurer, insurance adjuster, and environmental remediation contractor, brought summary judgment motions to dismiss statutory and negligence claims against them under the Environmental Protection Act.

The court held that none of the moving parties were “owners of the pollutant” or persons “having control of the pollutant” within the meaning of the statute and dismissed the statutory claims.

However, the court declined to summarily dismiss the negligence claims, finding that the potential duty of care owed by an insurer, adjuster, or remediation contractor to an adjoining landowner presented a novel question requiring a full Anns analysis at trial.

Amendments to the statement of claim were also permitted as they arose from the same factual matrix and did not introduce a new cause of action.

The plaintiff suffered a broken leg after slipping on concrete slurry that had pooled on a municipal sidewalk.

The trial judge found the adjacent property owners liable for creating the slurry and the City liable for failing to keep the sidewalk in a reasonable state of repair, apportioning 20% liability to the City.

The City appealed, arguing the trial judge erred in finding the sidewalk was in a state of non-repair and in his causation analysis.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding sufficient evidence supported the trial judge's conclusions that the sidewalk's reverse slope and improper grinding repairs constituted non-repair, and that these conditions were a contributing cause of the pooling slurry and the plaintiff's fall under the 'but for' test.

The Regional Municipality of Peel appealed a trial judgment finding it solely responsible for flood damage to the plaintiffs' homes caused by sewer backups during heavy rainfalls in 1995 and 1996.

The Region argued that the City of Brampton's storm sewer system was deficient and contributed to the flooding.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, upholding the trial judge's finding that the flooding was caused by a failure of the sanitary sewer system, which the Region took over responsibility for in 1974.

There was no evidence that Brampton's storm sewer system was negligently operated or caused the flooding.

The appellant appealed a trial decision finding that the Town of Oakville did not owe her a duty of care to require a builder to warn about noise.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, agreeing with the trial judge that the Town lacked the legal authority under the Planning Act to impose such a duty on the builder.

The court found that the Town's inability to discharge the duty without the Region's consent to severance negated any prima facie duty of care.

No costs were awarded as the Town did less than it might have.

The appellants appealed the dismissal of a negligence action arising from a single-vehicle accident in which the driver was seriously injured after leaving a municipal roadway.

They argued the trial judge erred in describing the accident location, in finding the roadway warning signage adequate, and in concluding causation had not been proven.

The Court of Appeal held the location was well understood by the trial judge, the warning sign sufficiently communicated the sequence of curves and advisory speed, and the causation finding was entitled to appellate deference.

The appeal was dismissed with costs.