D.K. Laidlaw

The appellants sold their manufacturing business to the respondents and signed a restrictive covenant prohibiting them from competing for five years after the sale or after terminating their employment, whichever was later.

Nine years later, the appellants resigned and started a competing business.

The respondents sued for breach of the covenant.

The Supreme Court of Canada upheld the Court of Appeal's decision that the covenant was clear, unambiguous, and enforceable.

The Court found the covenant reasonable between the parties and in the public interest, rejecting the appellants' arguments that the respondents' alleged monopolistic practices rendered the covenant void.

The appellant underwent surgery performed by the respondent surgeon to remove an occlusion in his carotid artery.

During or immediately following the surgery, the appellant suffered a massive stroke leaving him paralyzed.

The appellant sued for damages, alleging he was not informed of the specific risk of stroke from the surgery itself.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that failure to disclose risks sounds in negligence, not battery.

The Court established that the duty of disclosure requires a surgeon to inform a patient of all material risks.

Furthermore, the Court adopted a modified objective test for causation, asking whether a reasonable person in the patient's particular position would have foregone the surgery if properly informed.

The Court found the surgeon breached his duty and that a reasonable person in the appellant's position, being close to a vested pension and facing no immediate emergency, would have declined the surgery.

The trial judgment awarding damages was restored.

The appellant, a roofing contractor, sued the respondent supplier and third-party manufacturer for damages after a newly installed roof failed due to severe blistering.

The trial judge found for the appellant, inferring a latent defect in the asphalt by eliminating other probable causes, including faulty workmanship.

The Court of Appeal reversed, holding the appellant failed to prove the defect existed when the asphalt left the manufacturer.

The Supreme Court of Canada allowed the appeal, restoring the trial judgment.

The Court held that the trial judge was entitled to infer a defect from the elimination of other causes, and the Court of Appeal erred in requiring affirmative proof of a specific defect or credible scientific theory.

The appellant appealed a re-assessment by the Minister of National Revenue regarding capital cost allowance for a film purchase.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal, finding no error in law in the Federal Court of Appeal's decision.

The testator left an estate consisting largely of real property.

The residue was to be kept invested, with the net income paid to his widow for life, and the remainder to his children.

The widow, receiving little income from the real property, sought a direction that the executors convert the real property, relying on the rule in Howe v. Lord Dartmouth.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that the rule in Howe v. Lord Dartmouth, which requires trustees to convert wasting or unproductive personalty to deal even-handedly between life tenants and remaindermen, does not apply to real property.

The Court declined to extend the rule to real property, stating that such a change should be left to the legislature.

The widow's claim for notional income was also dismissed as there was no duty to convert the realty.