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ARTICLE · 07 AUGUST 2013

This Week At The SCC (02/08/2013)

McCarthy Tétrault
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he Supreme Court of Canada released two decisions this week of interest to Canadian businesses and professions.

CanadaLitigation, Mediation & Arbitration
Brandon Kain
Brandon Kain
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A Commentary on Recent Legal Developments by the Opinions Group of McCarthy Tétrault LLP

The Supreme Court of Canada released two decisions this week of interest to Canadian businesses and professions.

The first, Marine Services International Ltd. v. Ryan Estate, 2013 SCC 44, involved the constitutional relationship between provincial workers compensation legislation and the federal jurisdiction over navigation and shipping.  As my colleague Byron Shaw discussed in a previous post, the respondents in Marine Services were the estates of two fisherman who died at sea after their boat capsized.  They applied for and obtained compensation under the Newfoundland and Labrador Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Act (the "WHSCA"). While s. 44 of the WHSCA creates a statutory bar to civil proceedings where a party has obtained compensation under the statute, the respondents also brought a negligence action against the appellants (the manufacturer and architect of

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