For a few months during the summer of 2018, Fortis BC closed a
long strip of Vancouver's East 1st Avenue to conduct gas line
work. A number of businesses on Commercial Drive have since
indicated they are considering whether to bring an action for loss
of business revenue over those months. Not one week after East 1st
Avenue fully reopened, the decision in Gautam et al v. Canada
Line Rapid Transit Inc. et al, 2018 BCSC 1515 was released,
which outlines the potential for claims by businesses affected by
the construction of public works.
In Gautam, Mr. Justice Grauer considered whether the
plaintiffs, three members of a class of owners and tenants of
commercial properties along the Cambie corridor, were entitled to
damages for injurious affection under the Expropriation
Act, RSBC 1996, c. 125, caused by the method selected by the
defendants to construct the Canada Line skytrain through Cambie
Village in Vancouver between November 2005 and July 2009. He
concluded that
