Legal Blog:
Personal Liability
A corporate tenant shuts down, but the business pops up elsewhere. Can the disappointed landlord successfully claim its losses against the corporate tenant’s principal? The two most likely attacks to establish personal liability were discussed in FNF Enterprises Inc. v. Wag and Train Inc., a 2023 decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal.
Allegations
The landlord alleged in its action that the corporate tenant abandoned the leased premises with rent owing and that the sole director, officer, and shareholder then moved the business to a different location under a different name. The landlord alleged that the principal had treated the corporation’s assets as her own and benefitted personally by the move. This, the landlord alleged, was fraud.
Continue Reading >Discovery
The Limitations Act, 2002, which has a basic two-year limitation period, builds the discovery principle into its provisions. This is no surprise because the common law, outstanding for years before the Act’s enactment, recognised the discovery principle. In essence, subject to the 15-year ultimate limitation period, the law does not want an injured party to lose a right of action before even being aware of that right. Conversely, the Real Property Limitations Act (RPLA), which has a basic 10-year limitation period, has no discovery principle built into its provisions. Does the discovery principle apply to the RPLA limitation period regardless? The Court of Appeal answered this question in Browne v. Meunier 2023 ONCA 223.
Derelict
In 2017, purchasers bought a cottage abutting a river. Their immediate neighbours bought their property in 2015. When the purchasers bought their cottage, they believed that their property included a derelict boathouse, situate in the river, which they planned to demolish. After closing, they found that their neighbours’ predecessor in title built that boathouse in 1969 and that the purchasers did not own the boathouse.
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