Summaries Sunday: Maritime Law Book

Summaries of selected recent cases are provided each week to Slaw by Maritime Law Book. Every Sunday we present a precis of the latest summaries, a fuller version of which can be found on MLB-Slaw Selected Case Summaries at cases.slaw.ca.

This week’s summaries concern:
Disability insurance / Expungement of trade mark / Real property boundary / Requirement of leave to appeal:

Jackson v. Standard Life Assurance Co. 2012 BCCA 503
Insurance – Accident and sickness insurance – The contract – General – Qualifying period for coverage 
Jackson sued Standard Life for failure to compensate her for approximately one year of disability. At issue was whether Jackson was covered by the plan on the date of her disability.
The British Columbia Supreme Court, in a decision reported [2011] B.C.T.C. Uned. 1487, found that Jackson was covered by the plan in question. The trial judge found that the eligibility period laid out by …

Homeaway.com Inc. v. Hrdlicka 2012 FC 1467
Trademarks, Names and Designs – Trademarks – Registration – Expungement of mark – Grounds – Prior use
HomeAway.com Inc., an American company, applied to expunge the registered trademark at issue (VRBO) on several grounds, including prior use. It owned all trademark rights of VRBO.com Inc. The respondent resided in Canada and was the person registered as owner of the trademark. The use of VRBO was the offering of vacation rental services and advertising such services over the web. There had been …

Black v. Norris et al. 2012 NBQB 346
Real Property – Title – Boundaries – Determination of boundaries
This litigation arose out of a property dispute between the owners (Black and Norris) of two valuable waterfront properties. In addition to a number of legal issues, at issue was a subdivision plan which was prepared by Welch and who was the fee simple owner of the “disputed area”.
The New Brunswick Court of Queen’s Bench, Trial Division, concluded that Black was the fee simple owner of the disputed area. Accordingly, …

Bentley et al. v. Police Complaint Commissioner (B.C.) et al. 2012 BCCA 514
Practice – Appeals – Leave to appeal – Whether required
The Police Complaint Commissioner, acting on a recommendation of a staff member (Steenvoorden), ordered that the dismissal of a complaint against two Vancouver Police Department officers be reinvestigated by the department. Some time later, Steenvoorden, recommended the reassignment of the investigation to a different police service. The Commissioner did so, reassigning the matter to the Abbotsford Police Department (Chief Constable Rich). The police officers applied for judicial review, seeking to quash …