Thomas Albert Cromwell

In an appeal from Alberta proceedings, the appellant sought Charter damages under s. 24(1) after alleging a regulatory board breached freedom of expression by restricting communications.

The majority held the statutory immunity clause barred the damages claim and concluded the claim should be struck at the pleadings stage.

Concurring reasons emphasized the absence of proper constitutional notice and evidentiary record to decide constitutional invalidity.

Dissenting reasons would have permitted the claim to proceed, finding it not plain and obvious that damages were unavailable or that the immunity clause necessarily applied.

The appeal was dismissed with costs.

The appellant challenged rectification orders that had rewritten corporate resolutions to avoid unintended tax consequences from unwinding a financing structure.

The Court held that rectification requires an antecedent agreement with definite and ascertainable terms that was incorrectly recorded in the instrument.

A generalized objective of tax neutrality, without a specific prior agreement on the term to be corrected, was insufficient.

Applying ordinary rectification principles in the tax context, the majority rejected retroactive correction of an agreement that had been accurately recorded but produced an unwelcome result.

The appeal was allowed, with a dissent that would have upheld rectification for implementation error.

The appellant sought rectification of transactional documents under article 1425 C.C.Q. after an implemented cross-border financing structure created unforeseen foreign accrual property income and significant federal tax liability.

The majority held that a general intention of tax neutrality, without sufficiently determinate or determinable obligations and prestations, cannot ground retroactive modification of written instruments.

The Court distinguished correction of transcription errors from retroactive alteration of agreed transactions that merely produced unintended consequences.

It concluded the parties made no expression error, but instead chose transactions that generated adverse tax results.

The appeal was dismissed with costs, with two judges dissenting in favour of broader rectification aligned with prior Quebec jurisprudence.

On a preliminary jurisdiction motion, the appellant challenged whether the Federal Court could hear a declaration that a municipal property-standards by-law was constitutionally inapplicable or inoperative against a federally incorporated bridge undertaking.

The majority held that the claim was grounded in constitutional law, not relief sought under a federal statute within s. 23(c) of the Federal Courts Act, and therefore the first branch of the ITO test was not met.

The application was accordingly outside the Federal Court’s statutory jurisdiction and had to be struck.

Dissenting judges would have found jurisdiction and addressed forum restraint through discretionary stay principles.

An access-to-information appeal considered whether statutory language allowing production despite any privilege of the law of evidence authorized a provincial privacy commissioner to compel records claimed as solicitor-client privileged.

The Court held that the provision did not clearly and unequivocally abrogate solicitor-client privilege in its substantive dimension.

Reading the statute as a whole, the Court found no clear legislative intent to set aside that privilege.

The appeal was dismissed, and the order compelling production was not upheld.

On an appeal concerning a disciplinary investigator’s demand for an insurer’s claim file, the Court considered whether a statutory obligation to produce “any document” abrogates litigation privilege.

The Court held that litigation privilege is a class privilege distinct from solicitor-client privilege but fundamental to the administration of justice and the adversarial process.

It ruled that the privilege may be lifted only by clear, explicit and unequivocal legislative language, not by inference from a general production clause.

Because the governing provision lacked sufficiently specific wording, the insurer was entitled to withhold documents protected by litigation privilege.

The appeal was dismissed with costs.

The appellant sought an oppression remedy under s. 241 of the Canada Business Corporations Act after being removed from the corporation’s share register.

The appeal turned on whether he had a reasonable expectation of continued shareholder treatment and whether non-compliance with statutory transfer formalities, in these facts, constituted oppressive conduct.

The majority held the trial findings established that the appellant had asked to cease being a shareholder, so the alleged expectation was not reasonable and the oppression claim failed.

The Court confirmed that statutory non-compliance alone does not automatically establish oppression absent frustration of reasonable expectations.

A judgment creditor sought disclosure of a mortgage discharge statement to enforce a writ of seizure and sale against debtors' property.

The appeal addressed whether federal privacy legislation barred disclosure absent express consent.

The Court held disclosure could be ordered under the court-order exception and that implied consent arose in the enforcement context once judgment and seizure steps were completed with notice.

The Court emphasized access to justice and rejected requiring additional formalistic motions where substantively identical relief was sought.

The appeal was allowed and the mortgagee was ordered to produce the statement.

On a statutory appeal from a municipal assessment tribunal, the court addressed the standard of review and the tribunal's authority to increase an assessment at a municipality's request after a taxpayer complaint.

The majority held that reasonableness applied because the issue concerned interpretation of the tribunal's home statute and no correctness category displaced deference.

Interpreting the statute purposively, the majority concluded the tribunal could change an assessment upward in this procedural context and reinstated its decision.

The dissent would have applied correctness, found the tribunal exceeded the complaint's scope, and would have remitted for a new hearing.

The appeal was allowed with costs, with a four-judge dissent.

On a private contempt proceeding arising from student strike injunctions, the Court addressed strict procedural and substantive safeguards required before liberty-limiting sanctions may be imposed.

The majority held that contempt notice must clearly identify the alleged offence and that knowledge and intent requirements must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt for the branch relied upon.

On the evidentiary record, the moving party failed to prove actual or inferred knowledge of the specific order and could not sustain liability under the advanced theory.

The acquittal entered by the provincial appellate court was upheld.

In related pan-national class proceedings, the court considered whether supervisory superior court judges may sit together outside their home provinces to hear motions in implementing a settlement.

The court held that, where subject-matter and personal jurisdiction exist and no coercive powers are required, judges may exercise discretionary authority to sit extraprovincially if local law does not prohibit it.

The court concluded this authority is available under the relevant class proceedings statutes and, in any event, aligns with inherent jurisdiction principles.

The court rejected a mandatory video-link condition, while confirming that openness and practical access remain relevant discretionary considerations.

The appeals were allowed and the cross-appeal was dismissed.

In a constitutional appeal on judicial independence, the appellants challenged transitional remuneration and pension provisions enacted during a provincial judicial reform.

The Court held that when a new judicial office is created, remuneration for all judges appointed to that office must be reviewed by an independent committee within a reasonable time, including retroactive review where required.

The impugned provisions delaying or structuring remuneration without timely committee review breached the institutional financial security guarantee and were not justified under s. 1.

The Court upheld the validity of the pension participation provision and the later executive order, and ordered a remedial committee review for the 2004 to 2007 period.

In a customs tariff appeal, the appellant challenged a judgment that had set aside a tribunal classification of imported hockey gloves.

The Court held that Rules 1 and 2 of the General Rules for the Interpretation of the Harmonized System operate conjunctively within a hierarchical framework when determining prima facie headings.

The majority found the tribunal reasonably concluded the goods were classifiable as gloves under heading 62.16 and reasonably rejected classification under heading 39.26 on the record and applicable notes.

The appellate intervention was set aside and the tribunal decision restored, with dissenting reasons concluding the tribunal’s interpretation was unreasonable.

In a builders’ risk insurance appeal, the appellants sought coverage for replacing windows scratched during post-installation cleaning performed by a contractor.

The insurers relied on an exclusion for the cost of making good faulty workmanship.

The Court held that, in this context, the exclusion removes only the cost of redoing the faulty work itself, while resulting physical damage remains covered.

The Court also held that interpretation of this standard form contract was reviewable for correctness in the circumstances.

The appeals were allowed with costs and the trial judgment was restored.

On a statutory interpretation appeal concerning reserve land taxation, the appellant argued that a bylaw clause permitting consideration of restrictions placed on land use “by the band” excluded a lease restriction created in a Crown lease.

The Court held that the assessor could consider the golf-club use restriction when valuing the leased reserve lands for assessment purposes.

Reading the bylaw text, purpose, and legislative context together, the Court found the 1996 amendment narrowed qualifying restrictions but did not bar this restriction.

The Court also held the Crown’s historical statutory role in reserve leasing did not negate that the restriction was placed by the band in context.

The appeal was dismissed with costs.

In a criminal appeal concerning circumstantial proof of possession of child pornography, the Court clarified that alternative inferences consistent with innocence may arise from evidence or absence of evidence, but must be reasonable rather than speculative.

The Court held there is no mandatory formula for circumstantial-evidence instructions, though juries should be cautioned against inferential gap-filling and premature conclusions.

Reading the trial reasons as a whole, the Court found no reversible legal error in the treatment of inferences, burden, or standard of proof.

The guilty verdict was held reasonable on the totality of the evidence.

The acquittal was set aside and Charter ss. 8 and 24(2) issues were remanded to the provincial appellate court.

This appeal concerned whether Quebec's farm income stabilization program is a contract and how compensation-linkage decisions under section 88(3) must be interpreted.

The Court held the program is an innominate administrative contract, not a contract of insurance, and interpreted the text and structure as granting discretion over collective linkage.

Applying contractual good-faith and fairness principles, the majority found the respondent's collective methodology lawful in the circumstances.

The dissent would have allowed the appeal in part, concluding the linkage approach breached contractual limits by attributing notional amounts disconnected from participants' actual entitlements.

In an appeal by agricultural producers challenging compensation calculations under a provincial farm income stabilization program, the Court held the program is an innominate contract governed by general private law principles rather than insurance contract rules.

The governing standards for performance of contractual powers were good faith and contractual fairness, interpreted in light of the program’s public-interest objective.

The Court found no reversible error in the trial findings upholding the methodology used in the economic and statistical study for 2006 to 2008 compensation.

Arguments based on reasonable expectations and alleged methodological flaws did not justify appellate intervention.

The appeals addressed whether provisions of the National Defence Act permitting the Minister of National Defence to initiate appeals in military justice matters violate ss. 7 or 11(d) of the Charter.

The Court held that prosecutorial independence is a principle of fundamental justice, but that the Minister benefits from the same strong presumption of independent prosecutorial discretion as other public officials exercising prosecutorial functions.

The challenged provisions were found constitutional, and no statutory framework or evidentiary record established improper partisan motive.

On the mistrial issue, the Court held the military judge committed no reviewable error in refusing a mistrial after issuing strong curative instructions.

The motion to quash was dismissed and the Minister’s appeals were allowed.

The appeal addressed whether retrospective application of expanded sexual-offender prohibition orders in s. 161(1)(c) and (d) of the Criminal Code infringed the right to the lesser punishment under s. 11(i) of the Charter.

The Court held both amendments constituted punishment and therefore limited s. 11(i) when applied to pre-amendment offences.

Under s. 1, retrospective application of the no-contact condition in s. 161(1)(c) was not justified, but retrospective application of the Internet prohibition in s. 161(1)(d) was justified.

The appeal was allowed in part and the order was varied accordingly.