Daniel A. Boan

The City of Hamilton commenced an action against the architect and general contractor of an arena project for construction defects.

After years of inaction, the action was dismissed for delay by the registrar when the City's counsel inadvertently failed to attend a status hearing.

The City's motion to set aside the dismissal was denied by the motion judge.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal upheld the dismissal, finding that the 15-year delay was inordinately long, the critical five-and-a-half-year period of inaction was unexplained, and the delay caused actual prejudice to the defendants due to the unavailability and faded memories of key witnesses.

The Town of Newmarket appealed a decision declaring it breached its Contract A obligations to the respondent contractor by accepting a non-compliant bid from another bidder.

The accepted bid contained a discrepancy between the stipulated price, the GST, and the total cost of the work.

The Court of Appeal upheld the application judge's finding that the price was uncertain, rendering the bid non-compliant and incapable of acceptance.

The Court distinguished previous case law where price discrepancies were mere clerical errors, finding that in this case, the intended price was unclear on the face of the bid.

The appeal was dismissed.