The policy considerations underlying section 60 of the Wills, Estates and Succession Act, together with the nature of constructive trusts was the subject of some debate in a series of articles published in The Advocate in 2022.

 

A healthy and respectful canvassing of p...

This provision is mandatory and there is no discretion to order payment to be made to someone other than the PGT. See 2019 BCCA 171 at paras 7 - 11.

 

One of the leading decisions on the phrase, "excessive hours" is BC EST # D071/10 Johnston.  The employee worked 14 hours on an election day and argued that "excessive" should be interpreted to mean a shift in excess of 12 hours.  The Director considered the ...

In Mawhinney v. Stewart, 2023 BCSC 419, the Court considered the parties’ written submissions on costs and damages, which are prescribed under ss. 7 and 8 of the PPPA. In this case, the defendant successfully brought an application to dismiss the plaintiff’s action...

In VM Agritech Limited v. Smith, 2024 BCCA 360, the Court of Appeal upheld the lower court’s jurisdictional orders. Once a plaintiff’s burden with respect to establishing jurisdiction is met on the basis of the real and substantial connection test, it is irrelevant...

The Mental Health Act has no purpose or principles guiding statutory interpretation and application. In A.T. v. British Columbia (Mental Health Review Board), 2023 BCCA 283 at paras. 68-73 the Court summarized different purposes that can be found through jurisprudenc...

The term "obsolete" means something that is "no longer practised or used, discarded; [and] out of date".   A determination of obsolescence is a consideration of the nature of the charge itself in the circumstances of the use of the relevant property and a determinati...

In July 2022 the Ombudsperson’s Office released “Systemic Investigation Update: Report on the Implementation of Recommendations from Committed to Change: Protecting the Rights of Involuntary Patients under the Mental Health Act”, which considers whether ...

 

In Cohen 2023 BCSECCOM 317 an application was made to the BC Securities Commission for orders than notice delivered under an advance notice policy requiring notice with respect to the election of directors be included in a circular and that the shareholder vote be rest...

It is not always necessary to show that the proposed action is in the best interest of the estate. It may be sufficient if it is necessary or expedient to protect the interest of a specified person. 

This amendment means that all minimum rates will be automatically determined by the previous year's average inflation rate for the province of BC.  The increase will take effect on June 1 each year, except for agricultural piece rates that will increase on December 31 eac...

Provisions in the Act which prohibit specific types of ipso facto clauses, such as this one, which invalidates clauses that grant an accelerated payment or forfeiture of term because of someone’s filing of a Notice of Intention, do not oust the general common law “anti-dep...

In Hobbs v. Warner, 2021 BCCA 290, the Court held that the cost provisions prescribed in s. 7 of the PPPA will be presumed to be on a full indemnity basis where the defendant is successful in their application to dismiss pursuant to s. 4.

In this case, the Court interpreted t...

The filing of a Notice of Dispute is a "proceeding" for the purpose of this section. After a Notice of Dispute is filed, the court may appoint an administrator pending legal proceedings. In Glendale v. Walker, 2024 BCSC 1947, the disputant successfully brought a petition to ap...

In VM Agritech Limited v. Smith, 2024 BCCA 360, the Court of Appeal upheld the lower court’s jurisdictional orders. Once a plaintiff’s burden with respect to establishing jurisdiction is met on the basis of the real and substantial connection test, it is irrelevant...

The implications of this section are canvassed by Jennifer Bednard in "Will or Will Not: Practice Implications of Section 58 of the Wills, Estates and Succession Act Part I: What is a Testamentary Document Anyway?" (2020) 78 Advocate 527.

The theory of corporate identification attributes the intention of a company’s “directing mind” to the corporation for the purposes of establishing corporate mens rea. The doctrine is engaged where the action taken by the directing mind was: within the field ...

Maddock v. British Columbia, 2022 BCSC 1605: Section 54(h) empowers the Provincial Health Officer ("PHO") to decline the request of a person affected to reconsider (s. 43), review (s. 44), or reassess (s. 45) an order or a variance order during an emergency. This provision exi...

In Singh v Singh, 2020 BCCA 21, the Court of Appeal restricts the nature of the "other factors" that may be argued in favour of reapoprtionment. Justice Garson reviews the specific factors identified in section 95(2) and, applying the principles of statutory interpretation, co...

Decisions of the court under s. 17 are not limited appeal orders and therefore leave is not required under s. 11 of the Court of Appeal Rules to appeal.

The Court of Appeal quashed a decision of the Tribunal that denied legal representation on the basis that legal counsel could instead provide assistance anonymously and behind the scenes.

The constitutionality of the Civil Resolution Tribunal's limitation on legal representat...

 

In Mithaq Canada Inc. 2024 ONCMT 9 the Ontario Capital Markets Tribunal (Tribunal) dismissed the application of Mithaq Capital SPC (Mithaq) to cease trade a private placement that Aimia Inc. (Aimia) completed in October 2023. Mithaq had asserted that the private placem...

This section was drawn from section 2.1 of the Arbitration Act, RSBC 1996, c. 55, and is needlessly confusing. On the one hand it seems to say that people can agree to arbitration anything that "may be the subject of a family law dispute in the future," while on the other is s...

Section 36 of the Property Law Act does not apply to the Crown land owned or controlled by the Provincial government:    Fox v British Columbia (Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development), 2022 BCSC 541

The purpose of this provision, embodying as it does the common law “indoor management rule”, is clear: persons doing business with a corporation should not have to be concerned about whether the company’s internal business housekeeping is in order. Instead, i...

Nesbitt v. College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia, 2024 BCSC 1661: Section 24 of the Health Professions Act, R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 183, provides a limited statutory immunity. The immunity applies to members of the College board and persons acting on behalf of ...