Chester Stanton

Two groups of landowners appealed the Surveyor General's confirmation of a survey that extended road allowances to the water's edge of Georgian Bay, separating their properties from the beach.

The appellants argued the Surveyor General erred by ignoring a previous Divisional Court decision, misapplying common law principles of accretion, and rejecting estoppel arguments.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeals, finding the Surveyor General made reasonable findings of fact supported by evidence, including that no accretion had occurred and that the original 1820s survey intended the road allowances to reach the water.

The court held the standard of review was correctness for law and palpable and overriding error for fact, and found no such errors.

Following a successful claim for possessory title, the claimant sought costs for two protracted appeal hearings.

The court awarded costs on a substantial indemnity basis, fixed at $490,000, citing the claimant's multiple favorable Rule 49 offers to settle and the objector's unreasonable and vexatious conduct throughout the proceedings.

The parties disputed the ownership of a portion of beachfront land and an isthmus connecting a small island to the mainland in Georgian Bay.

The respondent held paper title to the disputed land, which had ambulatory boundaries that changed with the water level.

The applicant, who owned the island, claimed possessory title or a prescriptive easement over the disputed land, arguing that she and her predecessors had used it continuously for access and recreation under the mistaken belief that they owned it.

The court found that the applicant had established adverse possession, as the possession was open, notorious, and continuous for the requisite statutory period prior to the land's conversion to the Land Titles system.

The court also held that occasional inundation of the land by water did not interrupt the limitation period for adverse possession of riparian property.

The respondent's expert witness evidence was rejected due to bias.

The applicant was declared the owner in fee simple of the disputed land.

The Township of Tiny appealed a decision of the Deputy Director of Titles under the Boundaries Act, which confirmed the westerly boundary of a beachfront cottage lot to be the water's edge of Lake Huron.

The Divisional Court found the Deputy Director's decision unreasonable, as it ignored the commercial reality of the original subdivision plan, which intended to reserve the beach for the use of back lot owners and the public.

The appeal was allowed, and the boundaries were confirmed as depicted on the original Plan of Subdivision, which set the boundary at a monumented straight line inland from the water's edge.