Gordon Kuski

The respondent, a tenured professor, entered into an agreement with the appellant University to resolve ongoing disputes.

The agreement stipulated that the respondent would be assigned academic duties for a year, after which his performance would be assessed by two deans.

If his work met the standard of a full professor, the University would waive a requirement for his early retirement.

The deans assessed his work as below standard, and the University notified him of his retirement.

The respondent sued for wrongful dismissal.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that the University breached the agreement by failing to assign the respondent sufficient duties, particularly teaching duties, to allow for a proper assessment of his performance as a full professor.

The appeal was allowed in part, and the matter was remitted to the trial court for an assessment of damages.

The appellant wife appealed a Court of Appeal decision that reduced her share of matrimonial property by applying the 'Capital Base Theory'.

The trial judge had ordered an equal division of the net family assets, which included a large farming operation built from the respondent husband's pre-marital assets.

The Supreme Court of Canada allowed the appeal, holding that the Capital Base Theory is incompatible with the Saskatchewan Matrimonial Property Act's presumption of equal distribution and its specific rules for valuing pre-marital exemptions.

The Court restored the trial judge's equal division but upheld the Court of Appeal's reduction of the interest rate on the wife's lump sum payment to 5 per cent under the federal Interest Act.