Ontario Court of the Drainage Referee

The Town of Bosanquet and other parties appealed a revised drainage report under the Drainage Act.

The Town of Forest brought a motion to adjourn the hearing on the basis that individual property owners within the town had not received proper notice of their block assessments.

The Drainage Referee granted the adjournment to ensure natural justice and ordered the drainage engineer to provide a rationale for the assessments.

The hearing then proceeded on the separate appeal of two property owners regarding the design of the drain and their assessment ratio.

During the hearing, the parties reached a settlement to amend the drain design to extend an enclosed pipe across the appellants' property, with the extra cost assessed pro rata to all owners, and the remainder of their appeal was dismissed.

The appellants sought increased allowances for soil restoration work and repairs to private tile drains following the construction of a municipal drain.

The Ontario Drainage Referee found that while the soil restoration was necessary, the appellants had elected to infill the drain to pre-1975 levels at a substantial extra cost, which went beyond the recommendations of the drainage engineer and soil experts.

The Referee granted an additional $10,000 allowance for the restoration work and a $3,000 allowance for potential minor repairs to the private tile drains, concluding that the public should not bear the full burden of the appellants' personal restoration objectives.

The appellant property owner brought a motion against the municipality for damages resulting from substandard work on a municipal drain adjacent to his property.

The Drainage Referee found that the municipality was negligent in failing to properly supervise the contractor's work, which involved over-excavation, and in failing to pursue the contractor or its bonding company for the deficiencies.

The Referee rejected the municipality's argument that the claim was statute-barred, finding the action was commenced within two years of the cause of complaint arising.

The appellant was awarded $9,000 in damages for necessary repairs to his property, discounted from the full estimated cost due to other contributing factors such as heavy rainfall and pre-existing damage.

The appellants appealed a Drainage Report that recommended the construction of a municipal drain to address slope instability and erosion on a property adjacent to a natural watercourse.

The Drainage Engineer had recommended filling the bottom of the ravine to stabilize the slope.

The Drainage Referee allowed the appeal and set aside the report, finding that the proposed work was for erosion control rather than the 'proper drainage of lands' as required by Section 3(1) of the Drainage Act.

The Referee concluded that the statutory authorization for a requisition drain could not be stretched to encompass a project whose singular objective was erosion control.

The appellants claimed damages for crop losses from 1984 to 1994 resulting from the respondent municipality's failure to repair a municipal drain.

The respondent brought a motion to bar claims prior to September 1992 based on the two-year limitation period in section 111(2) of the Drainage Act.

The appellants brought a cross-motion to extend the time under section 113.

The Drainage Referee found that the cause of complaint arose in 1987 when the municipality entered a moratorium agreement that halted drainage works.

While claims prior to 1987 were barred, the Referee exercised discretion under section 113 to extend the limitation period, allowing the appellants to claim damages from 1987 onwards, as the moratorium had prejudiced and misled them regarding their rights.

The Town of Bosanquet applied to the Drainage Referee for an order declaring that the proposed extension of the Coultis Drain was a proper work under Section 78 of the Drainage Act, and for an emergency order to proceed immediately.

Upstream agricultural landowners and downstream cottage owners opposed the initial design and costs.

The Referee held that Section 78 provided the municipality with the authority to extend the drain to a sufficient outlet without a petition.

The Referee found no emergency existed to justify bypassing normal procedures.

After further hearings and collaboration among the parties' engineers, a revised, more cost-effective design was submitted and approved by the Referee, including a special assessment for the Town of Forest for past use of the drain.

The appellants appealed a decision of the Ontario Drainage Tribunal regarding the Trudell Drain No. 2.

The respondent municipality brought a motion for summary judgment, arguing the appeal was barred by Section 101 of the Drainage Act.

The Drainage Referee ordered the remedial work to proceed and subsequently heard the remaining issues.

The Referee dismissed the appeal, upholding the Tribunal's $2,000 costs penalty against the appellants for obstructing access, finding no grounds to quash the municipal by-law authorizing payment for topsoil, and awarding $4,000 in costs to the municipality due to the appellants' adversarial conduct.

The appellant filed a claim for damages against the respondent municipality for negligence in the maintenance and operation of a municipal drain.

The appellant alleged that during a cleanout, the municipality over-excavated the drain, causing crop losses, machinery damage, and leaving an unsightly spoil bank.

The Drainage Referee found the municipality negligent for failing to follow the original profile, lacking supervision, and poor communication.

The referee awarded damages for crop loss and machinery damage, ordered the municipality to remove the spoil bank, and awarded costs to the self-represented appellant.

Claims for punitive damages and damages unrelated to the negligence were dismissed.

The applicants brought a motion requesting a strict interpretation of Section 15 of the Drainage Act to require a sufficient outlet for a municipal drain.

The respondent municipality argued the application should be dismissed on the basis of res judicata, as the issues had been determined in previous proceedings.

The Drainage Referee held that Section 15 must be read subject to Section 32, which provides discretionary powers to compensate owners of low-lying lands instead of continuing a drain to a sufficient outlet.

The Referee also found that the application was barred by res judicata, as no new evidence was available and the issues of outlet sufficiency and compensation had already been decided.

Following a decision of the Drainage Referee, the parties made written submissions regarding costs.

The appellant sought costs on a solicitor and client basis, arguing the respondent unreasonably refused to settle and caused procedural delays.

The respondent argued costs should be denied or limited, and that the Referee only had jurisdiction over costs for proceedings before the Referee under s. 108 of the Drainage Act.

The Referee agreed that jurisdiction was limited to proceedings before the Referee and found no justification for solicitor and client costs, as the respondent's actions were not malicious or vexatious and involved a genuine issue of legal interpretation.

Costs were fixed at $6,600 for fees plus $3,340.96 for disbursements.

The appellants appealed regarding the R.F. McLennan Drain.

A court-appointed drainage engineer prepared a report confirming that the 1975 drain installation was severely flawed and recommended new tile installation under two options.

The Drainage Referee approved the report with amendments, adopting the higher-capacity Option B. Due to the faulty prior installation, the Referee ordered the municipality and the provincial ministry to each pay a $55,000 special assessment toward construction costs.

The Referee also granted a $17,000 special allowance to the appellants for soil rehabilitation due to prolonged damage to their agricultural land.

The appellant, the Town of Bosanquet, and the respondents were involved in a dispute regarding proposed work on the Coultis Drain.

The Drainage Referee found that the major obstacle to the proposed work was the cost of the project.

The Referee ordered that a new engineering report be prepared in consultation with the parties' engineers, with the recommended works not to exceed a cost of $200,000.

The balance of the motion and the determination of costs were adjourned to a later hearing.

The Municipality of West Elgin brought a motion to dismiss the appeal of John and Joanne Vergeer regarding a decision of the Ontario Drainage Tribunal concerning the Trudell Drain #2.

The Referee dismissed the appeal insofar as it concerned matters governed by section 64 of the Drainage Act and authorized the Municipality to complete the specified work forthwith.

The appellants were ordered to provide access through their lands, and the remaining relief sought by the Municipality was adjourned sine die.

The appellant appealed a municipal drainage project, arguing that the initiating petition was deficient due to property misdescriptions, unauthorized signatures, and the failure of all joint owners to sign.

The Drainage Referee held that while minor property misdescriptions do not invalidate a petition, signatures by non-owners without clear written authorization are invalid.

Furthermore, following previous jurisprudence, the Referee determined that all joint owners must sign a drainage petition.

Because twelve signatures were found to be faulty, the petition was deemed insufficient and the by-law was quashed.

The plaintiff municipality sought reimbursement from the defendants for costs incurred in reconstructing a municipal drain, pursuant to a prior order of the Ontario Drainage Tribunal.

The matter was transferred from Small Claims Court to the Court of the Drainage Referee.

The defendants requested a new trial on the merits of the prior order, arguing they were unprepared at the original hearing.

The Referee dismissed the request for a new trial, noting a lack of jurisdiction to hear appeals regarding quality of construction under the Drainage Act, and ordered the defendants to pay the full reimbursement amount of $7,840.83 plus costs.

The appellant appealed the Town of Dresden's proceedings for the construction of the Trerice Street East Drain, arguing the municipality failed to observe the procedural requirements of the Drainage Act.

The Referee found that the Town failed to provide necessary notices to affected owners and the adjacent Township of Camden.

A special hearing was convened to remedy the procedural errors, during which a settlement was reached to enclose the drain through a flood plain, facilitated by a financial contribution from a local business.

The Referee awarded the appellant $5,000 in costs, finding his appeal was justified and served to remedy the natural justice errors.

The Township of Bromley applied to the Ontario Drainage Referee to resolve a dispute with a contractor, Kevin Donohue, regarding the construction of a municipal drain.

The contractor had proceeded with construction without signing a formal contract or following the drainage engineer's supervision, believing his authorization came from a landowners' meeting and a prior tribunal order.

The parties reached a settlement on the construction issues, but the allocation of extra engineering and legal costs remained unresolved.

The Referee found the contractor was not legally justified in his actions and ordered that the extra engineering costs be assessed pro rata to the drain, while half of the legal fees were charged exclusively to the contractor's property.