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.

Enforcing Alberta’s Restrictions on Consumer Arbitration

PDF version: Enforcing Alberta’s Restrictions on Consumer Arbitration

Case commented on: Young v National Money Mart Company, 2013 ABCA 264 (CanLII).

This decision by the Alberta Court of Appeal is a welcome addition to the body of consumer arbitration case law. It is the first Court of Appeal decision to give effect to section 16 of the Fair Trading Act, RSA 2000, c F-2, and only the second reported decision considering that provision despite the fact it has been around since 1998. The decision also offers a glimpse into the basis on which Service Alberta decides to approve or disapprove of consumer arbitration agreements under section 16.

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Adapting and Using the Law in the Recovery from a Natural Disaster

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Law on the Edge panel discussion commented on: “Law at the Limits: A Canterbury Tale: Adapting and Using the Law in the Recovery from a Natural Disaster”

The Canadian Law & Society Association and the Law & Society Association of Australia & New Zealand held their first joint conference, “Law on the Edge,” from July 1 – 4 in Vancouver in Allard Hall, UBC Law’s spectacular home.  There were over 100 plenary and other panels and roughly 400 participants, mainly from Canada, Australia and New Zealand. One of the most interesting panel discussions that I attended was the “Law at the Limits: A Canterbury Tale: Adapting and Using the Law in the Recovery from a Natural Disaster” panel on July 2, with presentations by five professors from the School of Law at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. Until this panel, I had not released the breadth of legal issues involved in recovering from natural disasters. The type of legal issues dealt with by panel members emphasized the systemic effects of natural disasters and recoveries, rather than the impact on individuals, such as the landlord/tenant, insurance, employment, credit/debt, mortgage, condo, and family issues being fielded by the volunteers with Calgary Legal Guidance, Pro Bono Law Alberta, Legal Aid Alberta, Pro Bono Students Canada and Student Legal Assistance in their Southern Alberta Flood Legal Help information and advice sessions. Nevertheless, the “Canterbury Tales” about price gouging, construction cartels, expropriation of condemned properties, unmediated discretion, volunteers’ liability, and other topics should be of broad interest to southern Albertans.

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Roundtable on Quebec v A: Searching for Clarity on Equality

By: Jennifer Koshan and Jonnette Watson Hamilton

PDF Version: Roundtable on Quebec v A: Searching for Clarity on Equality

Case Commented On: Quebec (Attorney General) v A, 2013 SCC 5 (case summary available here)

On May 13, 2013, we led the Faculty of Law’s first roundtable discussion of the summer on the Supreme Court’s most recent equality rights decision, Quebec (Attorney General) v A. Participants included faculty members, researchers from the Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre and Alberta Law Reform Institute, and a number of JD and graduate students. Coincidentally, a virtual roundtable on the case is also ongoing at the moment, moderated by Sonia Lawrence, Director of Osgoode Hall’s Institute for Feminist Legal Studies (IFLS), with participation from law profs Robert Leckey, Hester Lessard, Bruce Ryder, and Margot Young. Many of the issues raised in the IFLS discussion were also debated in our roundtable.

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Do Covenants to Compensate for Designation as an Historical Resource Run with the Land?

PDF version: Do Covenants to Compensate for Designation as an Historical Resource Run with the Land?

Case considered: Equitable Trust Company v Lougheed Block Inc, 2013 ABQB 209.

The foreclosure proceedings taken with respect to the historic Lougheed Building at 604 – 1 Street S.W. in Calgary have generated a number of legal controversies. I have previously blogged on interest issues in the “Perennial Problem of Section 8 of the Interest Act” and on security deposits matters in “Who Bears the Loss for Converted Security Deposits?” This latest judgment — a decision of Mr. Justice Paul R. Jeffrey — concerns compensation paid by the City of Calgary for the decrease in the value of the building when it was designated an “historical resource” under the Historical Resources Act, RSA 2000, c H-9. A Lougheed Building Rehabilitation Incentive Agreement dated September 2006 provided that total compensation would be $3,400,000 and it would be paid in fourteen annual installments of $227,000 each and a final fifteenth payment of $222,000.  The question was who was to receive the balance of the annual installments. Would it be The Lougheed Block Inc (LBI), the owner of the building who entered into the Incentives Agreement with the City and did the required rehabilitation work? Or would it be 604 – 1st Street S.W. Inc (604), the purchaser on the judicial sale after LBI defaulted on their mortgage with Equitable Trust Company and Equitable Trust foreclosed. The outcome depended on the answers to one property issue and one (far less interesting) contract issue.

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Consequences of being an OPCA Litigant?

PDF version: Consequences of being an OPCA Litigant?

Case commented on: ANB v Hancock, 2013 ABQB 97.

ANB v Hancock is Associate Chief Justice John D. Rooke’s second written judgment about an Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument (OPCA) litigant. As summarized by Justice Rooke in ANB (at para 15), “OPCA concepts are legally incorrect schemes marketed and promoted by a collection of conmen [“OPCA gurus”] that claim to allow a person to avoid or impose legal obligation outside of recognized legal processes.” These concepts and schemes are all associated with OPCA indicia, which are “unusual motifs that are unique to or strongly associated with OPCA concepts and schemes” (at para 16). ANB builds upon Justice Rooke’s ground-breaking decision in Meads v Meads, 2012 ABQB 571. Like Meads, ANB arose in the family law context, although Meads arose out of a divorce and matrimonial property action commenced by Mrs. Meads, and ANB arose from the seizure of A.N.B.’s two children by Alberta Family Services and a subsequent order granting permanent guardianship of the children to the province. ANB both applies and extends Meads. It applies it by following through on some principles set out in Meads, including the provision of an explanation of court costs, characterized in Meads (at paras 637-638) as “a crucial aspect in the ‘limited duty’ a judge owes to these self?represented litigants.” It extends Meads by allowing Crown counsel to hide their identities in the face of conduct by A.N.B. which is the subject of criminal charges.

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