Agricultural Law NetLetter - Sunday, August 21, 2016

HIGHLIGHTS

• An Alberta Queen's Bench Master in Chambers has summarily dismissed a claim by a son against his mother for specific performance of an oral agreement for ownership of a farm based on the fact that the son had worked the farm for 30 years, and for unjust enrichment. The Master observed that the son had received a two thirds crop share for the farm in the years he had worked it, and had also lived in a house on the farm for free. The Master held that the son's actions were not unequivocally consistent with an agreement that the farm would be conveyed to him and that part performance which would avoid the application of the Statute of Frauds could not be established. The Master also concluded that the son had not established that his mother was enriched, that he was correspondingly deprived, or that there was the absence of a juristic reason for the work he did on the farm. The Master discussed the elements of this type of claim and distinguished Alberta