Product Description
Co-Published with the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History
Property on Trial is a collection of 14 studies of Canadian property law disputes — some well-known, some more obscure — that have helped to shape the contours of the principles and rules of property law over 150 years. These studies, written by some of Canada’s leading legal historians, range in time from a discussion of a nineteenth-century dispute over the ownership of seal pelts in Newfoundland to modern questions of what constitutes private property in a digital age. They investigate the relationship between private and public interests in property; the limits of private property owners’ rights in relation to others, particularly neighbours and family; and the intersection of property law principles with other branches of the law, including criminal law, family law, and human rights.
The authors describe, in rich detail, the social, cultural, and political contexts in which the events unfolded, the backgrounds and personalities of the litigants, the skills of the lawyers, and the judicial attitudes of the day. On the one hand, Property on Trial is a collection of thoughtful and compelling stories about conflict in a wide variety of contexts, each with its own heroines and heroes, villains and ne’er-do-wells, winners and losers. On the other, it is an insightful look at the history of property law doctrine in Canada.
Foreword
Preface
Introduction
James Muir
The Law of Property in Animals, Newfoundland-Style
Bruce Ziff
Nuisance and Neighbourhood in Late Nineteenth-Century Montreal: Drysdale v Dugas in its Contexts
Eric H . Reiter
KVP: Riparian Resurrection in 20th Century Ontario
Jamie Benidickson
Cottages, Covenants, and the Cold War: Galbraith v. Madawaska Club
Philip Girard
“The right to discriminate”: Kenneth Bell versus Carl McKay and the Ontario Human Rights Commission
Frank Luce and Karen Schucher
“The courts have turned women into slaves for the men of this world”: Irene Murdoch’s Quest for Justice
Vanessa Gruben, Angela Cameron, a nd Angela Chaisson
Morgan and Jacobson v Attorney General for Prince Edward Island
Margaret McCallum
The Zoroastrian Temple in Toronto: A Case Study in Land Use Regulation, Canadian-Style
Eran Kaplinsky
Manitoba Fisheries v The Queen: The Origins of Canada’s De Facto Expropriation Doctrine
Jim Phillips and Jeremy Martin
The Malling of Property Law?: The Toronto Eaton Centre Cases, 1984–1987, and the Right to Exclude
Eric Tucker
Regina v Stewart: Is Information Property?
C. Ian Kyer
Begging to Differ: Panhandling, Public Space, and Municipal Property
Nicholas Blomley
Pirate or Prophet? Monsanto Canada Inc. v Schmeiser
Patricia L. Farnese
A Railway, a City, and the Public Regulation of Private Property: CPR v City of Vancouver
Douglas C. Harris
Private Property and the Public Interest: (Re)Telling the Stories of Principles, Places, and Parties
Mary Jane Mossman
Select Bibliography: Canadian Property Law Histories
Contributors
Index