Noble v Alley | |
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Hearing: June 13, 16, 1950 Judgment: November 20, 1950 | |
Full case name | Noble and Wolf v Alley et al. |
Citations | [1951] SCR 64, 1950 CanLII 13 (SCC) |
Prior history | APPEAL from Noble et al. v. Alley, 1949 CanLII 13, [1949] OR 503(9 June 1949), Court of Appeal (Ontario,Canada), affirming Re Noble and Wolf, 1948 CanLII 66, [1948] OR 579(11 June 1948), Superior Court of Justice (Ontario,Canada). |
Ruling | Appeal allowed. |
Court membership | |
Chief Justice: Thibaudeau Rinfret Puisne Justices: Patrick Kerwin, Robert Taschereau, Ivan Rand, Roy Kellock, James Wilfred Estey, Charles Holland Locke, John Robert Cartwright, Gerald Fauteux | |
Reasons given | |
Plurality | Rand J., joined by Kellock and Fauteux JJ. |
Concurrence | Kerwin J., joined by Taschereau J. |
Concurrence | Estey J. |
Dissent | Locke J. |
Rinfret C.J. and Cartwright J. took no part in the consideration or decision of the case. |
Noble and Wolf v Alley [1951] S.C.R. 64 is a famous Supreme Court of Canada decision where the Court struck down a restrictive covenant that restricted ownership of a section of land to "persons of the white or Caucasian race".
In 1933, Annie Noble had purchased a lot for a cottage in the Beach O' Pines area on Lake Huron. She decided in 1948 to sell the lot to Bernard Wolf. However, it was noticed that the original deed contained the following clause:
Though Wolf was Jewish, Noble still wanted to sell him the land, and so they applied to the court to have the covenant nullified, facing opposition from the "Pines" community.
Noble and Wolf cited a 1945 decision in Re Drummond Wren , [1] where the Ontario Court struck down a discriminatory covenant. However, at trial and on appeal the courts upheld the restriction.
The Supreme Court, in a six to one ruling, held that the covenant was invalid. They agreed with the lower court's dismissal of Drummond Wren and instead looked at the law of restrictive covenants and held that the language used in the restriction on alienation was too uncertain. As Rand J explained in his judgment, such covenants would need to comply with the rule expressed in Tulk v Moxhay , [2] in that they "should touch or concern the land as contradistinguished from a collateral effect". [3] As the covenant in this case was "directed not to the land or to some mode of its use, but to transfer by act of the purchaser", [4] it had to fail in that it was "impossible to set such limits to the lines of race or blood as would enable a court to say in all cases whether a proposed purchaser is or is not within the ban". [5]
While the case went through the courts, the Legislature of Ontario passed an act that declared such restrictive covenants to be "void and of no effect," but it only applied to ones created on or after March 24, 1950, its date of Royal assent. [6]
While the covenants in the deeds constituting the community at Beach O' Pines were held to be ineffective, others created before the amendment (as long as they complied with Tulk v Moxhay) were still considered to be valid, as the Ontario Court of Appeal stated that they did not offend public policy. [7]
Shelley v. Kraemer , an analogous case (but broader in its effect) decided by the United States Supreme Court in 1948.
Lieutenant-Colonel John Keiller MacKay was a Canadian soldier, lawyer and jurist. MacKay served as the 19th lieutenant governor of Ontario from 1957 to 1963.
Grand Bend is a community located on the shores of Lake Huron in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. It is part of the Municipality of Lambton Shores in Lambton County.
An equitable servitude is a term used in the law of real property to describe a nonpossessory interest in land that operates much like a covenant running with the land. In England and Wales the term is defunct and in Scotland it has very long been a sub-type of the Scottish legal version of servitudes, which are what English law calls easements. However covenants and equitable servitudes in most of the jurisdictions across North America, are slightly different. The usual distinction is based on the remedy plaintiff seeks and precedent will allow for the scenario in question. Where the terms are unmerged, holders of a covenant seek money damages; holders of equitable servitudes seek injunctions. The term used to exist in England widely before Tulk v Moxhay and as byproduct of the Judicature Acts became one of the fullest mergers of equity and common law in England and Wales so as to agree initially on the term "equitable covenant", then coming to be united in the term covenant save that "equitable" bears a particular meaning in English property rights since at least 1925: it means not fully compliant with registration/written formalities. If lacks legally routine formalities it is not a full legal covenant and therefore more tenuous, often only enforceable personally and against the original covenantor.
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Beach O' Pines is a private gated community located on the shores of Lake Huron in Lambton County, Ontario, Canada. It is located immediately outside of the community of Grand Bend, Ontario, and is bordered to the northwest by Lake Huron, the southwest by the Pinery Provincial Park, the northeast by the subdivision of Southcott Pines, and the southeast by the Old Ausable Channel, Highway #21, and the subdivision of Huron Woods.
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