Karen Horsman

The respondent was sexually assaulted by a prison official while incarcerated.

After his release, he developed a heroin addiction and spent 12 of the next 15 years in prison.

He successfully sued the province for damages, including past and future wage loss.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that the respondent was not entitled to compensation for wage loss during his periods of incarceration.

Applying the ex turpi causa doctrine, the Court found that awarding damages for time spent in prison would create an inconsistency between criminal and civil law, effectively providing a rebate on a lawfully imposed criminal sanction.

The appeal was allowed to exclude wage loss during incarceration, and the cross-appeal regarding the reduction of future wage loss was dismissed.

A forest fire caused by the negligence of Canadian Forest Products Ltd. damaged public lands in British Columbia.

The Province sued for suppression and restoration costs, which were agreed upon, as well as for lost stumpage revenue from harvestable trees and the value of non-harvestable trees in environmentally sensitive areas, including an environmental premium.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that the Province failed to prove a compensable financial loss for the harvestable trees because the Province's own Comparative Value Pricing system ensured revenue neutrality.

The Court also rejected the claim for the non-harvestable trees and the environmental premium, finding that the Crown had pleaded its case as an ordinary landowner rather than as parens patriae, and had failed to adduce sufficient evidence to quantify the environmental loss.

The respondent was sexually assaulted by her foster father while in the care of the provincial government.

She sued the Crown for vicarious liability and breach of non-delegable duty.

The Supreme Court of Canada, applying its companion decision in K.L.B. v. British Columbia, held that the Crown was not vicariously liable for the torts of foster parents and did not owe a non-delegable duty to ensure no harm came to foster children.

The Court also held that social assistance benefits received by the respondent must be deducted from her damage award for past loss of earning capacity to avoid double recovery, and that prejudgment interest on such an award should be calculated incrementally.

The appellant, an investor who lost money when a registered mortgage broker used funds for unauthorized purposes, brought a class action against the Registrar of Mortgage Brokers for negligence.

The appellant alleged the Registrar should have acted sooner to suspend the broker's licence.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal, holding that the Registrar did not owe a private law duty of care to the investors.

Applying the Anns test, the Court found insufficient proximity between the Registrar and the investors, as the governing statute imposed a duty to the public as a whole, not to individual investors.

Furthermore, policy considerations, including the spectre of indeterminate liability and the quasi-judicial nature of the Registrar's decisions, negated any prima facie duty of care.