Commercial Litigation and Dispute Resolution Blog

With the onset of the COVID-19 virus, the oil price war, and the resulting economic fallout from both events, the commercial environment has significantly changed. That change in the commercial environment has caused businesses and individuals to mitigate against risk and loss.

The commercial situation in which parties entered into contracts before the economic ...

Many commercial contracts limit claims between parties, particularly for consequential losses, to instances of gross negligence. Many statutes circumscribe claims against government authorities to the same circumstances. The Police Act, for example, prohibits claims against the police except where the police have been “guilty of dishonesty, gross negligence or ...

Most claims that have to be pursued by way of a court proceeding are subject to a limitation period, i.e., a time period within which the court proceeding must be commenced. Failing to commence the proceeding within the limitation period results in the claim being barred.

The basic limitation period under the Limitation Act, R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 13, is two years from the date the ...

In 1974, B.C. passed what is now the Frustrated Contract Act (FCA), to resolve uncertainty left when a contract was deemed frustrated (where performance has become impossible or radically different due to supervening events). Since then, the FCA has received little judicial consideration. It has been called “badly drafted and haphazard”. Most practitioners are ...

In a relatively recent decision, Pita Royale Inc. (Aroma taste of the Middle East) v Buckingham Properties Inc., 2019 ONCA 439, the Ontario Court of Appeal confirmed yet again that once a commercial landlord makes an ‘election’ to terminate a lease due to a specific default of a tenant, the landlord is not permitted to distrain or seize the tenant’s goods on the premises ...

Litigation is expensive, time consuming, stressful, and a distraction from your business. It should be avoided, if at all possible. If it is not possible to avoid litigation – you have been sued or absolutely need to sue – you should try to resolve the litigation as quickly as possible. The longer litigation goes on – and it can go on for a very long time – the more ...

If a plaintiff located in Canada serves documents outside Canada but fails to first obtain an order for service ex juris, can the Court retroactively validate service?  

The circumstances are important. Consider a situation where:

1. both parties have an agreement that the dispute to which the documents in question relate is to be heard in Canada (in Alberta) and governed by ...

Publication (communication of defamatory material to someone other than the plaintiff) is an essential element in a defamation claim. In the recent decision in Malak v Hanna, 2019 BCCA 106 (“Malak”) the British Columbia Court of Appeal confirmed that merely sending a hyperlink to defamatory material does not constitute publication.  

In Malak, the plaintiff and his ...

On April 25, 2019, the Federal Court of Appeal issued its decision in a longstanding patent dispute in the oil patch regarding hydraulic fracturing technology: Packers Plus Energy Services Inc. and Rapid Completions LLC v. Essential Energy Services Ltd. et al, 2019 FCA 96. In support of its patent, Packers had issued a series of infringement suits against several players in ...

Earlier this month, the B.C. Court of Appeal rendered its decision in West Van Holdings Ltd. v. Economical Mutual Insurance Company, 2019 BCCA 110 – a case which considered whether insurers can rely on certain exclusion clauses to deny or preclude coverage for environmental contamination and pollution claims.

The two insured entities, West Van Holdings Ltd. and West Van ...