R v Saskatchewan Wheat Pool

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R v Saskatchewan Wheat Pool

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Hearing: February 17, 1982
Judgment: February 8, 1983
Full case nameHer Majesty The Queen in the Right of Canada v Saskatchewan Wheat Pool
Citations [1983] 1 S.C.R. 205
Ruling The Board's appeal was dismissed.
Court Membership
Chief Justice: Bora Laskin
Puisne Justices: Roland Ritchie, Brian Dickson, Jean Beetz, Willard Estey, William McIntyre, Julien Chouinard, Antonio Lamer, Bertha Wilson
Reasons given
Unanimous reasons by Dickson J.
Laskin C.J. and Wilson J. took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

R v Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, [1983] 1 S.C.R. 205 is a leading case of the Supreme Court of Canada on tort law. The Court rejected the tort of breach of statutory duty.The courts should only use breaches of a statute as evidence towards an established tort and should not be trying to determine whether the legislature intended to allow a private right of action.

Supreme Court of Canada highest court of Canada

The Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court of Canada, the final court of appeals in the Canadian justice system. The court grants permission to between 40 and 75 litigants each year to appeal decisions rendered by provincial, territorial and federal appellate courts. Its decisions are the ultimate expression and application of Canadian law and binding upon all lower courts of Canada, except to the extent that they are overridden or otherwise made ineffective by an Act of Parliament or the Act of a provincial legislative assembly pursuant to section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Contents

Background

The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool delivered a shipment of infested wheat from one of its terminal elevators to the Canadian Wheat Board, which violated section 86(c) of the Canada Grain Act. The Board sought to recover damages for the statutory violation.

Saskatchewan Wheat Pool

The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool was a grain handling, agri-food processing and marketing company based in Regina, Saskatchewan. The Pool created a network of marketing alliances in North America and internationally which made it the largest agricultural grain handling operation in the province of Saskatchewan. Before becoming Viterra, SWP had operated 276 retail outlets and more than 100 grain handling and marketing centres. The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool operated under the name of AgPro in the prairie provinces of Manitoba and Alberta. Begun as a co-operative in the 1920s, the company became a publicly traded corporation in the 1990s. After the 2007 takeover of its competitor, Winnipeg-based Agricore United, the Pool name was retired. The merged company operated under the name Viterra until 2013, when it was acquired by Glencore International.

Canadian Wheat Board

The Canadian Wheat Board was a marketing board for wheat and barley in Western Canada. Established by the Parliament of Canada on 5 July 1935, its operation was governed by the Canadian Wheat Board Act as a mandatory producer marketing system for wheat and barley in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and a small part of British Columbia. It was illegal for any farmer in areas under the CWB's jurisdiction to sell their wheat and barley through any other channel than the CWB. Although often called a monopoly, it was actually a monopsony since it was the only buyer of wheat and barley. It was a marketing agency acting on behalf of Western Canadian farmers, passing all profits from its operation back to farmers. Its market power over wheat and barley marketing was referred to as the "Single Desk".

The CWB’s mandate was to pay farmers a base price for their grain, identify markets, negotiate the best price, deliver the goods, issue advance cheques and make final payment after the crop was sold. If the wheat market went up, farmers pocketed the profits. If the market went down, the government absorbed the loss. Nothing was subtracted from the farmer’s share except the cost of marketing and delivery.

At trial, the Federal Court of Canada held in favour of the Board but was reversed on appeal to the Federal Court of Appeal.

The Federal Court of Canada, which succeeded the Exchequer Court of Canada in 1971, was a national court of Canada that had limited jurisdiction to hear certain types of disputes arising under the federal government's legislative jurisdiction. The Court was split in 2003 into two separate Courts, the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal, although the jurisdiction and powers of the Courts remained largely unchanged.

The issue before the Supreme Court was whether the breach of the Act gave the Board a private right of action.

Opinion of the Court

Justice Dickson, for a unanimous Court, dismissed the appeal of the Board and held that there was no private right of action. Dickson examined the tort of breach of statutory duty in both England and the United States. He concluded that damages for breach of statutory duty should be subsumed by the law of negligence. He further rejected any novel right of action for damages for breach of statute and instead stated that the breach can be used as evidence of negligence and as evidence of a standard of care.

Negligence is a failure to exercise appropriate and or ethical ruled care expected to be exercised amongst specified circumstances. The area of tort law known as negligence involves harm caused by failing to act as a form of carelessness possibly with extenuating circumstances. The core concept of negligence is that people should exercise reasonable care in their actions, by taking account of the potential harm that they might foreseeably cause to other people or property.

In tort law, the standard of care is the only degree of prudence and caution required of an individual who is under a duty of care.

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