Emily Alexandra Kirkpatrick

The appellant strata corporation, established after a developer registered an air space parcel agreement obligating future strata owners to pay annual parking fees, disputed liability under that pre-incorporation agreement.

The majority held that a corporation not bound by a pre-incorporation contract may nonetheless enter into a post-incorporation contract on the same terms through objective conduct, and that the applicable test for contract formation is no different for strata corporations than at common law generally.

The Strata Property Act was found not to oust common law contract formation principles, and no compelling reason existed to modify those principles for the protection of strata lot purchasers.

On the facts, the appellant's years of payment and use of the parking facility objectively manifested assent to a post-incorporation contract on the terms of the air space parcel agreement.

The appeal was accordingly dismissed, with the remaining contractual issues remitted to the trial court, Rowe J. dissenting in part on the basis that the factual question of objective assent should also have been remitted.

The plaintiff moved for leave to file a fresh as amended statement of claim in a proposed class proceeding alleging price-fixing of large panel LCD products.

The amendment sought to add a new named plaintiff and revise the pleading to include LCD panels as a separate defined category.

The court held the amendments were substantive, not cosmetic, because they expanded the action to a wider range of products and a larger putative class.

The proposed added plaintiff was not already within the pleaded class definition, so the tolling provision in s. 28(1) of the Class Proceedings Act did not suspend its limitation periods.

The motion was dismissed.

The defendants brought motions for summary judgment to dismiss a proposed class action alleging a price-fixing conspiracy regarding liquid crystal display (LCD) panels.

The defendants argued the claims were statute-barred under the Limitations Act, 2002 and the Competition Act, and constituted an abuse of process.

The court dismissed the motions, finding that there were genuine issues requiring a trial regarding when the plaintiff knew or ought to have known of the claims (discoverability).

The court also held that the discoverability principle applies to the limitation period in s. 36(4) of the Competition Act.