Author Archives: Jonnette Watson Hamilton

About Jonnette Watson Hamilton

B.A. (Alta.), LL.B. (Dal.), LL.M. (Col.). Professor Emerita. Please click here for more information.

A Vote for R v Kapp as the Leading Equality Case of the Past Decade

By: Jonnette Watson Hamilton

PDF Version: A Vote for R v Kapp as the Leading Equality Case of the Past Decade

Case Commented On: R v Kapp, 2008 SCC 41

R v Kapp, 2008 SCC 41 is my nominee for the most significant case of the Aughts decade in the equality rights area. Kapp was destined to be a landmark case, if only because it involved the first direct challenge on the enumerated ground of race under the Charter‘s equality guarantee that was heard by the Supreme Court of Canada. However, because the Court used Kapp as a vehicle to substantially and substantively revise its approach to section 15 claims, the decision is even more significant.

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Perhaps the Last Court of Appeal Decision on the Availability of Specific Performance for Agreements for the Sale and Purchase of Land

Case considered: Covlin v. Minhas, 2009 ABCA 404

PDF version: Perhaps the Last Court of Appeal Decision on the Availability of Specific Performance for Agreements for the Sale and Purchase of Land

If the recommendations in the October 2009 Alberta Law Reform Institute (ALRI) Final Report No. 97, entitled “Contracts for the Sale and Purchase of Land: Purchasers’ Remedies,” are implemented, cases like Covlin v. Minhas will disappear from Alberta court dockets. ALRI recommended that the law governing remedies for breaches of such contracts be restored to what it was prior to the 1996 Supreme Court of Canada decision in Semelhago v. Paramadevan, [1996] 2 S.C.R. 415. The only issue in Covlin v. Minhas was whether the plaintiff, Verna Covlin, who was the purchaser under a contract for the sale and purchase of land, was entitled to the remedy of specific performance. Prior to Semelhago, specific performance for breach of a real estate contract was granted as a matter of course. Post-Semelhago, however, Covlin had to prove the land she offered to purchase was “unique” in the sense that no substitute is available for it. ALRI’s Final Report No. 97 recommends that legislation be enacted to provide that any land which is the subject of a contract for sale and purchase is conclusively deemed to be unique at all material times.

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Is every vendor of land an “unpaid vendor”?

Case considered: 1279017 Alberta Ltd. v. 1257613 Alberta Ltd., 2009 ABCA 364

PDF version: Is every vendor of land an “unpaid vendor”?

In 1279017 Alberta Ltd. v. 1257613 Alberta Ltd., the Alberta Court of Appeal split 2:1 on the question of whether 1257613 Alberta Ltd. had an interest in land that would support the caveat and certificate of lis pendens that it had filed against an 80 acre parcel of land registered in the name of 1279017 Alberta Ltd. The vendor’s interest in land was said to be an unpaid vendor’s lien that arose as a result of a real estate purchase contract between 1257613 and 1279017. Had the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice J.D. Bruce McDonald prevailed in this case, virtually every vendor of land, paid in full or not, would be an unpaid vendor and entitled to caveat another’s land. Fortunately, the majority position of Madam Justice Constance Hunt and Mr. Justice Keith Ritter won through. The unpaid vendor’s lien only continued until payment by the purchaser.

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Staying Arbitration Proceedings under Section 7(5) of the Arbitration Act

Case considered: Lamb v. AlanRidge Homes Ltd., 2009 ABCA 343

 PDF version:  Staying Arbitration Proceedings under Section 7(5) of the Arbitration Act

Lamb v. AlanRidge Homes Ltd. is an interesting case, in part because the Alberta Court of Appeal calls upon the Alberta legislature to review and amend section 7 of the Arbitration Act, R.S.A. 2000, c. A-43, a section the court criticizes (at para. 16) as “far from a model of clarity.” Calls for legislative action by the courts are not that common. The case is also interesting because section 7 is perhaps the provision most often used by the courts, as it is the provision that requires a court to stay a court action when asked to do so by a party to an agreement to arbitrate.It is, however, a section rarely considered by the Court of Appeal because subsection 7(6) provides that there is no appeal from an order of the Court of Queens’ Bench staying an action or refusing a stay under section 7. The case is also interesting because Alberta’s Arbitration Act is based upon the Uniform Arbitration Act which was prepared by the Uniform Law Conference of Canada in 1989, as were the arbitration statutes in six other provinces. Section 7 was carefully drafted and debated by the Commissioners. It seems somewhat odd to think that, twenty years later, there are basic problems with interpreting and applying that provision.

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A Custodian of a lawyer’s practice is like a . . . [what?]

Case considered: Polis v. Edwards, 2009 ABQB 520

PDF version: A Custodian of a lawyer’s practice is like a . . . [what?]

There are very few written decisions on the powers, rights and duties of custodians appointed by the Court of Queen’s Bench at the request of the Law Society of Alberta (LSA) pursuant to the Legal Profession Act, R.S.A. 2000, c. L 8, section 95. Unfortunately, this decision does not add to that small body of precedents. Although the question of whether a custodian is entitled to tax the accounts of the member of the LSA whose legal business they were appointed to manage or wind up was squarely before the court, Madam Justice Jo’Anne Strekaf declined to answer the question, deciding it instead on a more factual basis. This is to be regretted, not only because there is so little law in the area, but also because, in answering these types of questions, the courts have tended to rely on interesting analogies with others in roles that require them to stand in the shoes of another person and because the answer to the question about taxation seems like an easy one.
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