The appellants challenged the dismissal of their negligence claim arising from alleged tingle voltage in a barn said to have caused dairy herd production losses and the loss of a farm operation.
The Court of Appeal held that the trial judge erred in invoking the material contribution test, because the governing causation analysis was the but for test as explained in Clements, but found the error non-dispositive since causation failed even under the more lenient framework.
Deferring to the trial judge's detailed factual findings and assessment of competing expert evidence, the court upheld the conclusion that tingle voltage was not proved to be a contributing cause of the production issues on a balance of probabilities.
The appeal and cross-appeal were dismissed, with costs to the respondent.
