Digest: Last Mountain Valley (Rural Municipality No. 250) v Ter Keurs Bros. Inc., 2018 SKQB 58

DateFebruary 20, 2018

Reported as: 2018 SKQB 58

Docket Number: QB17445 , QBG 1468/17 JCR

Court: Court of Queen's Bench

Date: 2018-02-20

Judges:

  • Pritchard

Subjects:

  • Civil Procedure � Queen�s Bench Rules, Rule 7-5
  • Real Property � Lease � Sand and Gravel Lease - Profit � Prendre

Digest: The plaintiff applied for summary judgment pursuant to Queen�s Bench Rule 7-5(1)(a). It had extracted gravel from a quarry under an agreement with the defendant landlord. The terms of it allowed the plaintiff to enter upon the defendant�s land, to dig and to use an unlimited amount of sand and gravel and to process the sand and gravel upon the lands. The plaintiff had the exclusive right to the materials and was permitted to stockpile them on the land. The tenant was to receive payment for the gravel within 30 days after removal at the rate of $1.00 per cubic yard. Between March and December 2015, the plaintiff had had 100,000 yards of gravel crushed because it was the only source of gravel that it had and it was trying repair many roads damaged by flooding in 2014. In the year prior to the agreement�s expiry in April 2017, one of the owners of the defendant corporation deposed that he advised the plaintiff that it would be required to immediately remove all stockpiled gravel if the agreement was not renewed. The plaintiff denied any such discussion. When the agreement expired, the defendant told the plaintiff it would not be renewing it and that it claimed ownership of the stockpile of 109,000 yards of crushed gravel remaining on its land. The plaintiff sought a declaration of ownership to the stockpiled gravel for which it had paid approximately $885,000. The defendant argued that when the lease expired, all of the plaintiff�s contractual rights were terminated and it no longer had any rights of access to the land or anything on the land because the agreement was nothing more an ordinary lease creating a standard landlord and tenant relationship. The stockpiled gravel became its property in the same way that fixtures not removed within reasonable time after termination become the property of the landowner.
HELD: The application was granted in part. The court found that this was an appropriate case for summary judgment under Queen�s Bench rule 7-5(1)(a). It found that the agreement was not a true lease, but a profit � prendre arrangement between the parties, and following Saskatoon Sand & Gravel v Steve, the plaintiff was the legal and equitable owner
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