Crawford G. Smith

The City of Ottawa appealed a remittal decision that found various provisions of a 1981 Agreement and related contracts governing golf course lands to be inoperative.

The Court of Appeal had previously struck down conveyancing provisions in the agreement for violating the rule against perpetuities.

The application judge held that without these provisions, the remaining obligations to operate a golf course in perpetuity fundamentally altered the parties' original bargain and were therefore inoperative.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, agreeing that the removal of the conveyancing provisions frustrated the balance of the agreement, rendering all provisions relating to the golf course lands void.

The plaintiff brought a motion to add three additional representative plaintiffs during a certification hearing for a class action regarding COVID-19 business interruption insurance claims.

The court found that the original plaintiff, Nordik Windows Inc., had an arguable cause of action and was a suitable representative plaintiff.

The court also found that the three proposed additional plaintiffs—Hangar9 Studios Inc., Cash and Carry Inc., and Real Food for Real Kids Inc.—had viable causes of action and met the requirements under s. 5(1)(e) of the Class Proceedings Act.

The class action was fully certified with all four as representative plaintiffs.

The plaintiffs brought motions to certify three proposed class actions against Aviva Insurance for the blanket denial of coverage for COVID-19-related business loss claims.

The claims focused on 'restricted access' and 'negative publicity' coverage provisions in Aviva's standard-form policies.

The court found that the requirements for certification under the Class Proceedings Act were met, noting the commonality of the standard-form policies and the identical denial letters.

The two Lerners Actions were certified, and the Nordik Action was conditionally certified pending a motion regarding the representative plaintiff.

The defendant insurers brought a motion for further and better affidavits of documents from the plaintiff insureds in a coverage dispute under a builders' risk insurance policy.

The dispute arose from a 15-month delay in completing a light rail transit project, which the plaintiffs attributed to a sinkhole event.

The defendants sought production of subcontractor change orders, native schedules, and delay-related correspondence to explore other potential causes of the delay.

The court dismissed the request for change orders and schedules as premature and insufficiently substantiated, but granted the request for certain delay-related correspondence to assist in identifying other subcontractors who may have caused delays.

The plaintiffs, purchasers of pre-construction homes, commenced an action against the defendant developers claiming rescission of their agreements of purchase and sale or damages, alleging undue influence and unconscionability.

The defendants brought a motion to stay the action pursuant to s. 7(1) of the Arbitration Act, 1991, relying on an arbitration clause in the agreements.

The plaintiffs argued the arbitration agreement itself was invalid as unconscionable and obtained by undue influence.

The court applied the four-part test for unconscionability and the test for undue influence, finding that the arbitration agreement was neither unconscionable nor obtained by undue influence.

The court granted the defendants' motion and stayed the action in favour of arbitration.

The plaintiffs, representing a class of Barbados participating policyholders, brought an action against Manulife following the transfer of their policies to Life of Barbados (LOB) in 1996 and Manulife's subsequent demutualization in 1999.

The plaintiffs claimed that Manulife owed them a duty of care and a fiduciary duty to protect their rights to participate in the demutualization.

The court found that while it was reasonably foreseeable that Manulife would demutualize, no duty of care or fiduciary duty was owed to the plaintiffs because their rights as policyholders were lawfully extinguished by the transfer agreement, which was approved by regulators in Barbados and Canada.

The action was dismissed.