Civil Litigation - Plaintiff - SCC

In a property insurance appeal, insured homeowners sought full guaranteed rebuilding costs after a total-loss flood, including legal-compliance costs imposed by conservation authority requirements.

The Court interpreted the standard form policy and guaranteed rebuilding cost endorsement together, holding the compliance-cost exclusion remained operative except for the specified additional $10,000 coverage.

The majority held the exclusion’s language was unambiguous and that applying it did not nullify the endorsement’s core benefit of coverage beyond the policy limit.

Dissenting reasons would have allowed broader recovery at least for compliance costs tied to laws in force at renewal.

The appeal was dismissed with costs.

In this appeal, the Court considered whether a creditor’s unsuccessful seizure attempt still interrupts the 10-year extinctive prescription period for rights resulting from a judgment under Quebec civil law.

The Court held that filing and serving a notice of execution under the Code of Civil Procedure forms part of the judicial application for seizure and is sufficient to interrupt prescription under art. 2892 C.C.Q. even if no property is ultimately seized.

Because the seizure proceedings were suspended by a bailiff rather than dismissed by a court, art. 2894 C.C.Q. did not retroactively cancel the interruption.

The debtor’s prescription defence therefore failed.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal and held Ontario courts lack jurisdiction over the claims against the Italian defendants.

The majority accepted the Ontario cardmember agreement as a presumptive connecting contract but found the presumption rebutted because the real and substantial connection to Ontario was weak given the tort occurred in Italy and the foreign defendants’ relationship to Ontario was remote.

The dissent would have restored the motion judge’s ruling and allowed Ontario jurisdiction.

The appellant sought to uphold a provincial spending limit restricting third party political advertising to $600,000 in the year before a fixed-date election, while political parties faced no limits in the first six months of that period.

The majority held that the spending limit infringes s. 3 of the Charter by creating an absolute disproportionality in the political discourse, allowing political parties to drown out third party voices during a critical democratic period.

The majority further held the limit could not be saved under s. 1 as it failed the minimal impairment stage.

Two sets of dissenting judges would have allowed the appeal, finding the limit did not infringe s. 3 of the Charter on the evidentiary record, with the dissenters disagreeing on whether an expressive component exists within s. 3.

The appellants, pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors of opioid products, challenged the constitutional validity of s. 11 of British Columbia's Opioid Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act, which authorizes British Columbia to act as representative plaintiff in a class action on behalf of all federal, provincial, and territorial governments in Canada unless they opt out.

The majority held that s. 11 is intra vires, characterizing its pith and substance as a procedural mechanism under s. 92(14) of the Constitution Act, 1867 (Administration of Justice in the Province) that facilitates intergovernmental cooperation without creating or altering substantive rights.

The majority further found that s. 11 maintains a meaningful connection to British Columbia and respects the legislative sovereignty of other governments.

Côté J. dissented, finding that the pith and substance of s. 11 engages and derogates from property and civil rights of extra-provincial governments under s. 92(13), that no meaningful connection exists, and that ss. 11(1)(b) and (2) should be severed as ultra vires.

Successive tripartite agreements were entered into by the governments of Canada and Quebec and an Indigenous band council to establish and maintain an Indigenous police force serving the First Nation's community.

Government funding proved inadequate to ensure the maintenance of the police force, resulting in accumulated operating deficits totalling $1,599,469.95 over four years.

The band council sought reimbursement on both a contractual basis under Quebec civil law (good faith under arts. 1375 and 1376 C.C.Q.) and a public law basis grounded in the honour of the Crown.

The Supreme Court of Canada (8-1) dismissed the appeal, finding that the provincial government's refusal to renegotiate funding upon renewal of the agreements constituted both a breach of good faith under Quebec civil law and a breach of the obligation to act consistently with the honour of the Crown.

The remedy was grounded in reconciliatory justice rather than corrective justice alone, and the provincial government was ordered to pay its share of the accumulated deficits ($767,745.58) as a measure to restore the honour of the Crown and place the parties back on the path to reconciliation.

Air carriers challenged federal regulations providing standardized compensation to passengers for flight delays, cancellations, denial of boarding, and lost or damaged baggage, arguing the regulations conflicted with the exclusivity principle in Article 29 of the Montreal Convention as implemented by the Carriage by Air Act and were therefore ultra vires the Canadian Transportation Agency's regulation-making authority under the Canada Transportation Act.

The Supreme Court held that the exclusivity principle applies only to 'actions for damages' that share the characteristics of judicial proceedings seeking individualized compensation tied to injury caused by another.

Because the impugned regulations create a consumer protection scheme providing standardized statutory entitlements irrespective of harm actually suffered, they do not constitute 'actions for damages' and do not fall within Article 29's scope.

The Court also clarified that the Mohan framework governs admissibility of expert evidence on questions of international law.

Appeal dismissed.

The appellants challenged confidentiality orders made in proceedings involving a police informer who was charged with criminal offences and brought a motion for a stay of proceedings based on abusive state conduct.

The trial court proceeded entirely in camera without notice to the media and without listing the proceedings on the docket.

The Court of Appeal allowed the informer's appeal, stayed the conviction, but upheld sealing of all identifying information.

The Supreme Court held that no secret trial occurred, that the Vancouver Sun procedure should not be modified, that judges must retain discretion over notice to third parties, and that privileged information cannot be disclosed even to counsel for interested third parties.

However, the Court held that the trial judge should have created a parallel proceeding with its own record number, and that the Court of Appeal erred by not making public a redacted version of the trial judgment.

Appeals allowed in part and case remanded to the Quebec Court of Appeal.

The appellant seller appealed from a Court of Appeal decision that held exclusion clauses in a contract for the sale of topsoil were insufficient to oust the implied condition under s. 14 of the Sale of Goods Act that goods must correspond with their description.

The buyer had waived its right to test the topsoil before shipment, and the contract contained clauses providing that the seller would not be responsible for the quality of the material if the buyer waived those rights.

The Supreme Court held that the exclusion clauses constituted an express agreement under s. 53 of the Sale of Goods Act, applying modern contractual interpretation principles from Sattva and Tercon.

The majority restored the trial judge's judgment, finding the objective intention of the parties was for the buyer to accept the risk that the topsoil would not meet the previously supplied specifications if it failed to test the soil.

Côté J. dissented, concluding the word 'quality' in the exclusion clauses could not be expanded to cover defects in description or identity.

The appellants challenged a permanent injunction restraining a Canadian bank from honouring a letter of counter-guarantee in favour of a Greek bank.

The Greek bank had paid the beneficiary of an underlying letter of guarantee despite an interim order of an ICC arbitral tribunal prohibiting payment, and despite knowledge that the final arbitral award was imminent.

The majority held that where a beneficiary of a counter-guarantee has knowledge of and participates in a third party's fraud under the primary letter of guarantee, that fraud becomes the beneficiary's own and the fraud exception to the autonomy of letters of credit applies.

The dissent would have allowed the appeal, finding that the Greek courts' determination that the demand for payment was valid could not be disregarded, and that the beneficiary was innocent of any fraud.

Appeal dismissed, Karakatsanis and Côté JJ. dissenting.

The appellants, who served as presidents of a group of insurance companies under an incentive pay agreement with the majority shareholders, learned that a major company was interested in acquiring the group.

Rather than disclosing this to the shareholders, the presidents purchased the shareholders' interests and resold them at a substantial profit.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that the presidents breached both an implied contractual obligation to inform arising from the nature of the Presidents' Agreement and the obligation to perform that agreement in accordance with the requirements of good faith under arts. 1434 and 1375 of the Civil Code of Québec.

Disgorgement of profits was held unavailable as a non-compensatory remedy absent an obligation of maximalist loyalty, but damages equivalent to the appellants' profits were awarded pursuant to a rebuttable presumption that the shareholders' lost gain equalled those profits, where the appellants' own disloyal conduct prevented precise proof of injury.

The appeal was dismissed with costs.

A school board trustee sued a teachers' union president for defamation arising from public statements characterizing the trustee's online posts opposing a provincial sexual orientation and gender identity educational initiative as bigoted, transphobic, and hateful.

The defendant applied to dismiss the action under British Columbia's anti-SLAPP statute, the Protection of Public Participation Act.

The chambers judge dismissed the defamation action, finding a valid fair comment defence and that the public interest in protecting the defendant's counter-speech outweighed the limited harm to the plaintiff.

The Court of Appeal reinstated the action.

The Supreme Court of Canada majority restored the chambers judge's dismissal order, holding that the plaintiff failed to adduce sufficient evidence of serious harm causally linked to the defendant's statements, and that the defendant's expression as counter-speech on a matter of public interest relating to a marginalized group was deserving of significant protection under the public interest weighing exercise in s. 4(2)(b) of the PPPA.

Côté J. dissented, concluding the plaintiff was entitled to a day in court and that the chambers judge erred in failing to consider aggravating factors to harm and the quality of the expression at issue.

An aircraft struck the ground while attempting to land at Halifax Stanfield International Airport during a snowstorm, injuring passengers who subsequently commenced a class action.

The aircraft manufacturer brought an interlocutory motion to compel the Transportation Safety Board to produce the cockpit voice recorder and transcripts, which were protected by statutory privilege under s. 28 of the Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board Act.

The Board sought to make submissions in the absence of the public and other parties, which the chambers judge refused.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the Board's appeal, holding that s. 28(6)(b) does not confer a general right on the Board to make submissions in the absence of other parties, and that the chambers judge did not commit a reviewable error in ordering disclosure after concluding that the public interest in the proper administration of justice outweighed the statutory privilege.

The majority held the test under s. 28(6)(c) requires the moving party to establish that the recording is relevant, probative, and necessary to resolve the dispute — not merely relevant — and that disclosure should not be routine.

Côté and Brown JJ. dissented, finding the chambers judge committed multiple reviewable errors in his balancing analysis.

The appellant landowner sued a municipality alleging constructive taking of approximately 965 acres of vacant land, claiming the municipality's refusal to initiate a secondary planning process — combined with alleged encouragement of public use of the lands as a park — amounted to a de facto expropriation without compensation.

The majority (5-4) held that the CPR test for constructive taking requires only that a public authority acquire a 'beneficial interest' understood broadly as an 'advantage' (not necessarily a proprietary interest), and that the municipality's intention may be a relevant material fact.

The majority restored the motion judge's order allowing the constructive taking claim to proceed to trial, finding genuine issues of material fact.

The four dissenting justices would have dismissed the appeal, holding that CPR requires acquisition of a proprietary interest and that intention is irrelevant to the de facto taking analysis.

A not-for-profit disability rights organization sought public interest standing to challenge the constitutionality of British Columbia's mental health legislation permitting forced psychiatric treatment without patient consent.

After individual co-plaintiffs withdrew, the chambers judge dismissed the claim for lack of standing; the Court of Appeal remitted the matter for fresh consideration.

The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, holding that legality and access to justice do not merit particular weight in the Downtown Eastside framework and that a directly affected individual co-plaintiff is not required for a public interest litigant to establish a sufficient factual setting.

Applying the three Downtown Eastside factors cumulatively, the Court granted the organization public interest standing and awarded special costs on a full indemnity basis throughout.

The appellant First Nation government sought advance costs to fund treaty rights litigation against the Crown, arguing that despite having access to financial resources, those resources were required to address pressing community needs including housing deficits, lack of infrastructure, and high unemployment.

The Supreme Court clarified the impecuniosity requirement for advance costs: a First Nation government with access to financial resources may satisfy the requirement by demonstrating that those resources are genuinely needed to meet pressing needs, which are not limited to bare necessities but extend to matters within the broad mandate of First Nation governance.

The Court found the case management judge erred in failing to make sufficiently particularized findings on the cost of pressing needs and available surplus resources.

The appeal was allowed and the matter remitted to the Court of Queen's Bench of Alberta for reconsideration on a more complete record, with solicitor-client costs awarded to the appellant in all courts.

The estates of a prominent couple who were found dead in unexplained circumstances sought sealing orders over probate files to protect the privacy and physical safety of beneficiaries and trustees.

The application judge granted the sealing orders, finding the privacy and safety interests outweighed the open court principle, but the Court of Appeal unanimously set them aside.

The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, holding that the appellants failed to establish a serious risk to an important public interest.

The Court clarified that privacy can constitute an important public interest for purposes of the Sierra Club test only insofar as it protects dignity — that is, information so sensitive it strikes at the biographical core of an individual — and found the probate file contents did not meet that standard.

The Court also held that the alleged risk of physical harm to beneficiaries and trustees was speculative rather than a proper inference from the record.

A newspaper publishing company applied to unseal a court record and access exhibits filed by a public institution in an action alleging misappropriation of public funds by a former manager.

Before the motion was heard, the public institution discontinued its action and retrieved its exhibits pursuant to article 108 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

The majority held that the right of access to court records under article 11 C.C.P. extends only to what is in the record at the time it is consulted, and does not give a right to access exhibits already retrieved by the parties.

The dissent held that a discontinuance cannot defeat an application for access filed prior to it, and that the court retained jurisdiction to apply the Dagenais/Mentuck framework to the appellant's motion.

The appeal was dismissed with the majority concluding that the Dagenais/Mentuck test does not apply where articles 11 and 108 C.C.P. confer no judicial discretion.

Three police officers sued the Attorney General of Ontario for misfeasance in public office, alleging Crown prosecutors mishandled stay applications brought by two accused persons who claimed the officers assaulted them during an arrest.

The majority held that prosecutorial immunity bars misfeasance claims by police officers against Crown prosecutors, as allowing such claims would fundamentally undermine prosecutorial independence and objectivity and imperil the accused's right to a fair trial.

The majority found that the mutually independent relationship between police and prosecutors is incompatible with a regime of legal accountability running from prosecutor to police.

In dissent, one justice would have dismissed the appeal, finding four policy reasons why prosecutorial immunity should not apply to deliberate and unlawful prosecutorial conduct causing serious harm to police officers facing findings of brutality, and that the high liability threshold for misfeasance adequately guards prosecutorial independence.

The appellant underwent a laparoscopic colectomy performed by the respondent surgeon, during which her left ureter was injured, ultimately necessitating removal of her left kidney.

The trial judge found that the surgeon breached the standard of care and that the breach caused the injury requiring the kidney's removal.

The Court of Appeal majority set aside the trial decision, holding the trial judge erred in law in identifying and applying the standard of care.

The dissenting judge found no basis to interfere with the trial judge's approach and conclusions.

The Supreme Court unanimously restored the trial judgment, adopting the reasons of the dissenting judge.