David B. Williams

The plaintiff abattoir sued the provincial government for negligence, trespass, and conversion arising from the 19-month suspension of its licence and detention of meat products following an investigation into the processing of uninspected and dead animals.

The court dismissed the action, finding that the provincial regulator did not owe a private law duty of care to the plaintiff, as its statutory mandate was to protect public health.

Even if a duty existed, the regulator did not breach the standard of care given the extraordinary circumstances of concurrent criminal investigations, nor did its actions cause the plaintiff's business losses.

The plaintiffs sought damages arising from a motor vehicle accident caused by an impaired driver, which resulted in the death of their infant son and injuries to the mother and two other sons.

Liability was admitted, and the trial proceeded as an assessment of damages.

The court found that the mother's physical and psychological injuries, as well as the psychological injuries of the two surviving sons, met the threshold for permanent serious impairment under the Insurance Act.

The court awarded non-pecuniary damages, past and future income loss, and Family Law Act damages for loss of care, guidance, and companionship.

The defendants brought a motion for summary judgment to dismiss the plaintiff's solicitor negligence claim on the basis that it was statute-barred.

The plaintiff alleged his former lawyer settled his family law matter without his consent and failed to protect his interests.

The court found that the plaintiff had actual knowledge of the material facts giving rise to his claim by February 2014 at the latest, when he filed a complaint with the Law Society.

As the action was commenced in March 2016, more than two years after discovery, the court granted the motion and dismissed the action.

In a class proceeding concerning the ownership of surplus from partial wind-ups of a pension plan and alleged improper administrative expenses, the parties sought approval of a revised settlement agreement after earlier settlement arrangements failed due to significant changes in actuarial surplus estimates.

The motion was brought under s. 29 of the Class Proceedings Act, 1992 for court approval of the amended settlement.

Despite objections from certain class members, the court held the revised agreement was fair, reasonable, and in the best interests of the class when assessed against litigation risks, fluctuating actuarial calculations, and the possibility that the employer might ultimately have been entitled to the surplus.

The settlement substantially increased the guaranteed distribution to class members and included financial concessions from both the defendant and class counsel.

The court approved the amended settlement as falling within the acceptable range of reasonableness for class action settlements.

The defendant physician brought a motion seeking to disqualify the plaintiffs' counsel of record and for particulars regarding the plaintiffs' response to his limitations defence.

The defendant argued that the plaintiffs' counsel would likely need to testify regarding their due diligence to establish 'special circumstances' to extend the limitation period.

The court dismissed the motion for disqualification, noting the plaintiffs undertook not to call any current or former member of their counsel's firm as a witness.

The court also dismissed the request for further particulars, finding the draft amended statement of claim and the extensive summary judgment record provided sufficient detail.

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.

Two competing law firms brought motions for carriage of a proposed securities class action against Armtec Infrastructure Inc. and its directors and underwriters, alleging misrepresentations in a prospectus and press release.

The court evaluated the competing actions based on the nature and scope of the causes of action, the proposed class definitions, the named defendants, and the representative plaintiffs.

The court granted carriage to the Simmonds plaintiffs, finding their approach to the class definition and damages to be simpler and more cohesive, and their representative plaintiffs to possess significant business acumen.

The competing Locking action was stayed.