This Week At The SCC (25/04/2014)

The Supreme Court of Canada released three judgments this week of interest to Canadian businesses and professions.

The first, Peracomo Inc. v. TELUS Communications Co., 2014 SCC 29, involved an action against a crab fisherman and his company brought after he deliberately cut a cable lying on a river bottom which, unbeknownst to him, was a live fiber-optic cable co-owned or used by several of the plaintiffs.  The defendant relied on s. 29 of the federal Marine Liability Act, which limits liability for property damage caused by the operation of ships of the defendant's class to $500,000.  In response, the plaintiffs relied on Article 4 of the Convention on limitation of liability for maritime claims given force by the same statute, which creates an exception to this limitation of liability provision where "the loss resulted from [the defendant's] personal act or omission, committed with the intent to cause such loss, or recklessly and with knowledge that such loss