Res Judicata (General)

Caselaw.Ninja, Riverview Group Publishing 2021 ©
Date Retrieved:	2024-11-27
CLNP Page ID:	2309
Page Categories:	Legal Principles
Citation:	Res Judicata (General), CLNP 2309, <https://rvt.link/9s>, retrieved on 2024-11-27
Editor:	Sharvey
Last Updated:	2023/11/22

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Danyluk v. Ainsworth Technologies Inc., 2001 SCC 44 (CanLII), [2001] 2 SCR 460

22 The extension of the doctrine of issue estoppel in Canada to administrative agencies is traced back to cases in the mid-1800s by D. J. Lange in The Doctrine of Res Judicata in Canada (2000), at p. 94 et seq., including Robinson v. McQuaid (1854), 1 P.E.I.R. 103 (S.C.), at pp. 104-5, and Bell v. Miller (1862), 9 Gr. 385 (U.C. Ch.), at p. 386. The modern cases at the appellate level include Raison v. Fenwick (1981), 1981 CanLII 786 (BC CA), 120 D.L.R. (3d) 622 (B.C.C.A.); Rasanen, supra; Wong v. Shell Canada Ltd. (1995), 1995 CanLII 17974 (AB CA), 15 C.C.E.L. (2d) 182 (Alta. C.A.); Machin v. Tomlinson (2000), 2000 CanLII 16945 (ON CA), 194 D.L.R. (4th) 326 (Ont. C.A.); and Hamelin v. Davis (1996), 1996 CanLII 8356 (BC CA), 18 B.C.L.R. (3d) 112 (C.A.). See also Thrasyvoulou v. Environment Secretary, [1990] 2 A.C. 273 (H.L.). Modifications were necessary because of the “major differences that can exist between [administrative orders and court orders] in relation, inter alia, to their legal nature and the position within the state structure of the institutions that issue them”: R. v. Consolidated Maybrun Mines Ltd., 1998 CanLII 820 (SCC), [1998] 1 S.C.R. 706, at para. 4. There is generally no dispute that court orders are judicial orders; the same cannot be said of the myriad of orders that are issued across the range of administrative tribunals.

23 In this appeal the parties have not argued “cause of action” estoppel, apparently taking the view that the statutory framework of the ESA claim sufficiently distinguishes it from the common law framework of the court case. I therefore say no more about it. They have however, joined issue on the application of issue estoppel and the relevance of the rule against collateral attack.

24 Issue estoppel was more particularly defined by Middleton J.A. of the Ontario Court of Appeal in McIntosh v. Parent, 1924 CanLII 401 (ON CA), [1924] 4 D.L.R. 420, at p. 422:

When a question is litigated, the judgment of the Court is a final determination as between the parties and their privies. Any right, question, or fact distinctly put in issue and directly determined by a Court of competent jurisdiction as a ground of recovery, or as an answer to a claim set up, cannot be re-tried in a subsequent suit between the same parties or their privies, though for a different cause of action. The right, question, or fact, once determined, must, as between them, be taken to be conclusively established so long as the judgment remains. [Emphasis added.]