Commercial Litigation and Dispute Resolution Blog

Authors: Kinji Bourchier and Amy Nathanson.

In the recent Ontario Superior Court case of Moore v. Getahun, 2014 ONSC 237 (“Moore”) the Court answered yes to this question and took a very restrictive approach to communications between counsel and experts.  Almost all civil litigators across the spectrum of cases deal with experts. Experts can play a ...

The Supreme Court of Canada struck down the court hearing fees imposed by the province of British Columbia as being unconstitutional because they prevent access to the courts in a manner that is inconsistent with section 96 of the Constitution and the underlying principle of the rule of law.

The Case History

The SCC’s October 2, 2014 decision in Trial Lawyers ...

Deciding what to do with a defaulting commercial tenant can be a trap for the unwary. A recent decision from the BC Court of Appeal has confirmed that once a landlord has elected to pursue a certain remedy or course of action as against a defaulting tenant, that election may well be irrevocable such that a landlord may not “switch horses” and later elect to pursue a different ...

In June, 2014, a Notice of Civil Claim was filed in the British Columbia Supreme Court in the case of Adolfo Garcia v. Tahoe Resources Inc. (“Garcia”).  In Garcia, the plaintiffs have sued a Canadian parent company that conducts mining activities through a foreign subsidiary in Guatemala.  This is the first time this type of claim has been bought in British Columbia ...

Most commercial leases contain terms that require tenants to pay additional rent. Additional rent is usually a share of the costs and charges incurred to operate the property. These costs can include municipal taxes, insurance premiums, repair and maintenance costs and common area utility charges. In any given year, these charges change and fluctuate.  Landlords often ...

Choosing commercial arbitration over conventional litigation cannot guarantee confidentiality of the process, as a recent decision of the BC Supreme Court shows. The prospect of keeping a commercial dispute confidential has long been recognized as one of the main advantages of arbitration over litigation in the courts, along with the speed of the process, the ability to ...

Governing and managing a strata property can be messy and difficult. Strata owners are generally a disparate group with little in common beyond ownership in the strata. From among this group, a strata council must be elected, usually all volunteers who, to one degree or another, are reluctant participants and untrained in strata governance. Yet, it is the members of the ...

Two of the main benefits of private arbitration are said to be speed and finality. However, the long running case of Sattva Capital Corporation v. Creston Moly Corporation has been a prime example of how court intervention into the arbitration process can lead to arbitration being anything but speedy or final. I first blogged about this case on May 9, 2011 when it had ...

Likely because the application of the law is uncertain, commercial leases generally have detailed clauses dealing with the question of when a piece of equipment or an improvement installed in a premises becomes a fixture or remains a chattel.  The answer matters as fixtures, in law, are considered to be part of the land and, at the end of a lease, ordinarily would revert to the ...

Last year I blogged about a Nanaimo commercial tenant who defeated her landlord’s claim for unpaid rent on the grounds the lease had been fundamentally breached as a result of a pervasive odour. Neither the landlord, nor the tenant could find the source of the smell though it was related to the HVAC system. The odour was adversely affecting the tenant’s retail clothing ...