Unifund Assurance Co v Insurance Corp of British Columbia

Last updated
Unifund Assurance Co v Insurance Corp of British Columbia

Supreme Court of Canada 2.jpg

Hearing: December 12, 2002
Judgment: July 17, 2003
Docket No. 28745
Ruling Appeal allowed
Court Membership
Chief Justice: Beverley McLachlin
Puisne Justices: Charles Gonthier, Frank Iacobucci, John C. Major, Michel Bastarache, Ian Binnie, Louise Arbour, Louis LeBel, Marie Deschamps
Reasons given
Majority Binnie J. (paras. 1-108)
Dissent Bastarache J. (paras. 109-141)

Unifund Assurance Co v Insurance Corp of British Columbia, [2003] 2 S.C.R. 63, 2003 SCC 40 is a leading constitutional decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on extraterritorial application of provincial legislation.

The Constitution of Canada is the supreme law in Canada; the country's constitution is an amalgamation of codified acts and uncodified traditions and conventions. Canada is one of the oldest constitutional democracies in the world. The constitution outlines Canada's system of government, as well as the civil rights of all Canadian citizens and those in Canada.

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

Marcia and Ronald Brennan were from Ontario. They visited British Columbia and rented a car. They were in a serious accident. The plaintiff driver returned to Ontario to collect a provincial no-fault benefit from Unifund Assurance. Unifund sought reimbursement from the Insurance Corp of British Columbia under the Ontario law. The BC insurance company challenged the Ontario law as extraterritorial.

The issue before the Supreme Court was whether s. 275 of the Ontario Insurance Act was constitutionally inapplicable in the circumstances.

Decision of the Court

Justice Binnie, writing for the majority, allowed the appeal and found that the Ontario law was inapplicable to the BC insurance company. Binnie described the issue as whether there was a "real and substantial connection" between a provincial law and an out-of-province defendant. This is a question of constitutional applicability for which Binnie gives four propositions (para. 54):

In Canadian law, a real and substantial connection or the real and substantial connection test is a legal principle used to determine whether a subject matter falls within a jurisdiction. The phrase was first adopted in Canada in the Supreme Court of Canada decision of Libman v. The Queen (1985). It is used in several circumstances in matters of conflict of laws.

  1. The territorial limits on the scope of provincial legislative authority prevent the application of the law of a province to matters not sufficiently connected to it;
  2. What constitutes a “sufficient” connection depends on the relationship among the enacting jurisdiction, the subject matter of the legislation and the individual or entity sought to be regulated by it;
  3. The applicability of an otherwise competent provincial legislation to out-of-province defendants is conditioned by the requirements of order and fairness that underlie our federal arrangements;
  4. The principles of order and fairness, being purposive, are applied flexibly according to the subject matter of the legislation.

Binnie examines and applies these principles. He notes that the BC insurance co. does not carry on any business in Ontario. He finally concludes that the Ontario law is inapplicable.

The analysis is significant in that it imports the conflict of laws approach in Morguard v De Savoye into the constitutional analysis from the Churchill Falls case and other extraterritorial cases.

See also

<i>British Columbia v Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd</i>

British Columbia v Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd, [2005] 2 S.C.R. 473, 2005 SCC 49, is a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada where the Court found that the provincial Tobacco Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act, which allowed the government to sue tobacco companies, was constitutionally valid. Imperial Tobacco Canada is an indirect subsidiary of British American Tobacco.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

Related Research Articles

Canadian federalism involves the current nature and historical development of federal systems in Canada.

The Canadian legal system has its foundation in the English common law system, inherited from being a former colony of the United Kingdom and later a Commonwealth Realm member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The legal system is bi-jurisdictional, as the responsibilities of public and private law are separated and exercised exclusively by Parliament and the provinces respectively. Quebec, however, still retains a civil system for issues of private law.

The Victoria Charter was a set of proposed amendments to the Constitution of Canada in 1971. This document represented a failed attempt on the part of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to patriate the Constitution, add rights and freedoms to it and entrench English and French as Canada's official languages; he later succeeded in all these objectives in 1982 with the enactment of the Canada Act 1982.

Pith and substance is a legal doctrine in Canadian constitutional interpretation used to determine under which head of power a given piece of legislation falls. The doctrine is primarily used when a law is challenged on the basis that one level of government has encroached upon the exclusive jurisdiction of another level of government.

Court system of Canada an article about the court system of Canada

The court system of Canada forms the judicial branch of government, formally known as "The Queen on the Bench", which interprets the law and is made up of many courts differing in levels of legal superiority and separated by jurisdiction. Some of the courts are federal in nature, while others are provincial or territorial.

<i>Rylands v Fletcher</i>

Rylands v Fletcher [1868] UKHL 1 was a decision by the House of Lords which established a new area of English tort law. Rylands employed contractors to build a reservoir, playing no active role in its construction. When the contractors discovered a series of old coal shafts improperly filled with debris, they chose to continue work rather than properly blocking them up. The result was that on 11 December 1860, shortly after being filled for the first time, Rylands' reservoir burst and flooded a neighbouring mine, run by Fletcher, causing £937 worth of damage. Fletcher brought a claim under negligence against Rylands, through which the case eventually went to the Exchequer of Pleas. The majority ruled in favour of Rylands. Bramwell B, however, dissenting, argued that the claimant had the right to enjoy his land free of interference from water, and that as a result the defendant was guilty of trespass and the commissioning of a nuisance. Bramwell's argument was affirmed, both by the Court of Exchequer Chamber and the House of Lords, leading to the development of the "Rule in Rylands v Fletcher"; that "the person who for his own purposes brings on his lands and collects and keeps there anything likely to do mischief if it escapes, must keep it in at his peril, and, if he does not do so, is prima facie answerable for all the damage which is the natural consequence of its escape". No right "to enjoy property" exists in UK black letter law, and it is this decision upon which stare decisis is built in the area.

<i>Chaoulli v Quebec (AG)</i>

Chaoulli v Quebec (AG) [2005] 1 S.C.R. 791, 2005 SCC 35, was a decision by the Supreme Court of Canada of which the Court ruled that the Quebec Health Insurance Act and the Hospital Insurance Act prohibiting private medical insurance in the face of long wait times violated the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. In a 4 to 3 decision, the Court found the Acts violated Quebecers' right to life and security of person under the Quebec Charter. The ruling is binding only in Quebec. Three of the seven judges also found that the laws violated section seven of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. One judge did not rule on the Canadian Charter. The result was a 3–3 tie on the question of the Canadian Charter, so Chaoulli decision does not apply to any other province.

Canadian constitutional law is the area of Canadian law relating to the interpretation and application of the Constitution of Canada by the courts. All laws of Canada, both provincial and federal, must conform to the Constitution and any laws inconsistent with the Constitution have no force or effect.

<i>Citizens Insurance Co of Canada v Parsons</i>

Citizens Insurance Co of Canada v Parsons is a major Canadian constitutional case decided by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. It interpreted the property and civil rights clause of section 92(13) in the Constitution Act, 1867 to be read expansively, to include contracts related to insurance to be within the power of the provincial governments, but the countervailing Trade and Commerce clause of section 91(2) was to be read narrowly.

<i>Local Prohibition Case</i>

Ontario (AG) v Canada (AG), also known as the Local Prohibition Case, is a famous Canadian constitutional decision by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, being one of the first cases to enunciate core principles of the federal peace, order and good government power.

In Canadian Constitutional law, interjurisdictional immunity is the legal doctrine that determines which legislation arising from one level of jurisdiction may be applicable to matters covered at another level. Interjurisdictional immunity is an exception to the pith and substance doctrine, as it stipulates that there is a core to each federal subject matter that cannot be reached by provincial laws. While a provincial law that imposes a tax on banks may be ruled intra vires, as it is not within the protected core of banking, a provincial law that limits the rights of creditors to enforce their debts would strike at such a core and be ruled inapplicable.

<i>Hunt v T&N plc</i>

Hunt v T&N plc, [1993] 4 S.C.R. 289 is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on conflict of laws. The Court ruled that the Quebec law prohibiting the removal of company documents from the province was constitutionally inapplicable to a British Columbia court order. The decision was significant in that it affirmed much of the reasoning from Morguard Investments Ltd. v. De Savoye (1990) and further held that the principles first identified in Morguard are fundamental to the constitution.

<i>Kruger v R</i>

Kruger v R, [1978] 1 S.C.R. 104, was a decision by the Supreme Court of Canada on the relationship between the Indian Act and provincial game laws. The Indian Act is a federal law enacted under the British North America Act, 1867, which gives jurisdiction over Aboriginals to the federal government. The Court found that the Indian Act's statement that provincial laws may apply to Aboriginal peoples in Canada as long as they apply to other people protects laws even if these laws affect Aboriginals more than others.

R. v. Jim (1915) 26 C.C.C. 236, was a decision by the British Columbia Supreme Court on Aboriginal ("Indian") hunting and provincial game laws. The Court found that Aboriginal hunting on Indian reserves is primarily federal jurisdiction, relating to section 91(24) of the British North America Act, 1867 which assigns "Indians, and Lands reserved for the Indians" to the federal government.

<i>Interprovincial Cooperatives Ltd v R</i>

Interprovincial Cooperatives Ltd v R (1975), [1976] 1 SCR 477 is a leading decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on the constitutional limits of provincial powers.

<i>Canadian Western Bank v Alberta</i>

Canadian Western Bank v Alberta [2007] 2 S.C.R. 3 is a landmark decision in Canadian constitutional law by the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) relating to the division of powers between Federal and Provincial legislative bodies.

<i>Paul v British Columbia (Forest Appeals Commission)</i>

Paul v British Columbia , 2003 SCC 55, is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision in administrative law and aboriginal law. The case stands for the proposition that a provincial administrative actor granted the power to determine questions of law may adjudicate matters within federal legislative competence, including s. 35 aboriginal rights matters.

<i>Whiten v Pilot Insurance Co</i>

Whiten v Pilot Insurance Co, 2002 SCC 18, [2002] 1 S.C.R. 595 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision on the availability of punitive damages in contract. The case related to the oppressive conduct of an insurance company in dealing with the policyholders' claim following a fire. According to the majority, "[t]his was an exceptional case that justified an exceptional remedy."

<i>Quebec (AG) v Canadian Owners and Pilots Assn</i> 2010 ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada (2010 SCC 39)

Quebec (AG) v Canadian Owners and Pilots Assn, 2010 SCC 39, [2010] 2 SCR 536, also referred to as Quebec v. COPA, is a leading case of the Supreme Court of Canada on determining the applicability of the doctrines of interjurisdictional immunity and federal paramountcy in Canadian constitutional law.