Michael D. Swindley

Following an arbitration award of $120,521.66 in favour of the plaintiff in a construction lien action, the parties sought a determination on costs.

The plaintiff claimed substantial indemnity costs from the date of its $125,000 offer to settle.

The court held that to determine if the offer was beaten, prejudgment interest up to the date of the offer must be added to the principal award.

As this total ($121,317.89) was less than the offer, Rule 49.10(1) was not engaged.

The court awarded the plaintiff partial indemnity costs fixed at $50,000 for fees and $4,724.93 for disbursements.

The plaintiff parents brought a motion for summary judgment against their defendant son for defaulting on a 1992 farm transfer agreement.

The son had agreed to purchase the family farm and related assets via promissory notes payable over 20 years, but ceased making payments in 2010.

The son raised defenses of contractual ambiguity, lack of understanding, and the expiry of the limitation period.

The court granted summary judgment, finding the contract unambiguous, noting the son had independent legal advice, and ruling that the limitation period for the delayed-demand promissory notes only began when the parents made a formal demand in 2013.

The plaintiffs were awarded $532,337.16.

The applicants, lineal descendants of two brothers who purchased 64 cemetery plots in 1869, sought a declaration that they were entitled to be interred in the remaining family plots.

The respondent cemetery, relying on the newly enacted Funeral, Burial and Cremation Services Act, 2002 and advice from the Registrar of Cemeteries, refused interment without strict proof of inherited interment rights.

The court held that the 1869 Deed governed, that 'heirs' included lineal descendants, and that the new Act did not apply retroactively to remove substantive rights.

Furthermore, the cemetery was estopped from denying interment rights due to its 140-year practice of allowing descendants to be buried in the family plots.