Here's one we've been meaning to post for a while, the Ontario (Canada) Land Tribunal's opinion in 13538 Ontario Inc. v. City of Stratford, No. OLF-22-002455 (Jan. 11, 2024), where the court resolved a dispute between the parties in an expropriation (eminent domain) case over which owed the other costs.
Now that isn't our area of expertise at all, but we were intrigued after our Toronto colleagues Shane Rayman and Conner Harris sent it our way.
The matter before the Tribunal was the penultimate chapter in an interminable legal battle, of nearly Dickensian proportions, relating to the expropriation by the City of Stratford (“City”) of the lands of the historic Grand Trunk Railroad Repair Shops. This tale features a hard fought legal battle over many years, a monstrous narrative with many subplots, the tragic death of the central protagonist whose vision for the Cooper site never came to fruition, a bereft family left with a final compensation award that was far less than what their patriarch had hoped for, and a concluding chapter where, like in the fictional case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, the last juridical debate is sadly and mostly about the payment of legal fees by or to a corporation with no assets.
Slip op. at 2.
With that introduction, who could resist reading more?
We call it a very "un-Canadian" beef because of our impression (perhaps a misimpression?) that our northerly neighbors pride themselves on decorum and politeness, and this fight seemed anything but decorpus and polite. At least that's the vibe we're getting from the opinion.
1353837 Ontario Inc. v. City of Stratford, No. OLT-22-002455 (Ont. Land Trib. Jan. 11, 2024)