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Good afternoon.

Following are summaries of this week’s civil decisions of the Ontario Court of Appeal.

In Gillham v. Lake of Bays (Township), a negligent construction case, the Court appears to have expanded the meaning of the “Appropriate Means” aspect of the discoverability test under section 5 of the Limitations Act, 2002. Up until now, the Court had interpreted “appropriate means” as “legally appropriate means” – if there is an alternative legal proceeding that can effectively determine the matter, the limitation period is suspended until the alternative legal proceeding runs its course. In this case, however, the Court appears to have interpreted “appropriate means” as permitting a plaintiff to take a “wait and see” approach before suing. It was not initially clear that there was anything more than trivial damage, and the plaintiff was entitled to “wait and see” by conducting further investigations to determine the extent of the damage before suing. This seems to conflate the issues of whether there is knowledge of damage with the issue of the appropriate means for seeking redress for that damage. Continue Reading ONTARIO COURT OF APPEAL SUMMARIES (JULY 23 – JULY 27, 2018)