The Supreme Court of Canada website has
recently posted that the Berendsen appeal (from the
Ontario Court of Appeal) has been discontinued. A notice of
discontinuance was filed by the Berendsens on January 24, 2011,
just four days before the matter was to be argued before the
court. The reason for the discontinuance, and the terms of
any settlement, are confidential. As a result of the
discontinuance, the Court of Appeal decision remains binding law in
Ontario, establishing important principles of liability in historic
pollution cases.
Seventeen years ago, the Berendsen family sued the Ontario
government for negligently contaminating their Bruce County farm
with asphalt road waste. The waste was buried there in the
1960s with the consent of the previous owner. The Plaintiffs
alleged that the ultra-trace levels of polyaromatic hydrocarbons
(PAHs) emanating from the buried waste contaminated their well
water and made it "unpalatable" to their dairy cows,
impacting
