1. If Canada’s “dual domicile” rules for recognizing the essential validity of a marriage deny the recognition of same-sex marriages in favour of international comity, those rules should be changed to reflect Canada’s position on same-sex marriage regardless of foreign law.
2. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms should override principles of international comity to recognize same sex marriages otherwise invalid because of foreign laws.

In response to Macfarlane

Emmett Macfarlane, a political scientist at UVic, posted an article on Macleans.ca yesterday (“Are some marriages more equal than others”) in which he helpfully distils the issues arising in the same-sex divorce case as being a battle “that pits established equality rights against the intricacies of Canadian family law and principles of international comity…”. Acknowledging that marriages performed in Canada involving non-residents “tend to be governed by the rules of their home jurisdictions”, his central point is that the Charter is implicated here and applies to everyone.

As a consequence, he submits “recognizing the marriages of foreign heterosexuals but not foreign gays and lesbians is a gross infringement of equality rights. […] The point is that the Charter applies here. Respect for the laws of other jurisdictions has limits. Either we recognize foreign marriages or we don’t. We cannot make unconstitutional decisions based on the laws of other jurisdictions.”

(Similar views were expressed in a Globe & Mail editorial, “’Law of domicile’ should have no veto on the Constitution”).

As I will discuss further below, I disagree that the approach (originally) advanced on behalf of the Attorney General of Canada infringes the equality guarantees under section 15 of the Charter. For the sake of argument on the basic point about comity, let’s assume first that there’s no Charter infringement even though by the end of this article you may (still) disagree.

International comity and our lines we draw in the sand

When Macfarlane says that respect for the laws of other jurisdictions has limits, he is bang on. The common law is really good at leaving room for exceptions. When it comes to the recognition and enforcement of foreign laws (including judgments of foreign courts), there are things some jurisdictions simply won’t do.

(1)   Penal laws

States generally will not enforce the penal laws of other states, which have been defined as “suits in favour of the state for the recovery of pecuniary penalties for any violation of statutes for the protection of its revenue or other municipal laws, and to all judgments for such penalties.” In other words, the court of one country can’t issue a judgment requiring someone to pay a fine to that country’s government and expect a Canadian court to enforce that judgment by, for example, freezing the person’s assets located in Canada.

(2)   Revenue laws

Same goes for revenue or tax laws. If a state wants to collect on its taxes, it needs to do so within its own borders or negotiate a tax treaty with its international neighbours that extends its reach abroad.

A judgment that was obtained in a manner that offends “natural justice” is also at risk of being disregarded abroad.

(3)   Natural justice

Breaches of natural justice aren’t your garden variety complaints with the judicial process, though; these are fundamental deficiencies with the process such that the outcome can’t possibly be recognized as having been fairly reached. An example of this would be obtaining a court judgment against someone who never had any notice whatsoever of the court proceeding that led to the judgment.

(4)   Public policy – not the nebulous “catch all” you might think

And then, of course, there’s the ultimate discretion not to apply foreign laws on grounds of public policy. Before you get too excited, this doesn’t mean foreign laws get disregarded whenever there’s a disagreement with the court doing the deciding (or the lex fori). After all, if that were the case, what would be the point of pretending to defer to the foreign law in the first place?

The Quebec Civil Code describes the public policy exception as being triggered when a foreign law’s application “would be manifestly inconsistent with public order as understood in international relations.” Mirroring language found in the Hague Conventions, this statement of the public policy/public order exception’s scope makes clear that the public policy standard to be applied isn’t a local standard but one that has international dimensions.

A leading example of the public policy exception being applied is the 1941 decree of the National Socialist (Nazi) government of Germany depriving Jewish émigrés of their German nationality and, consequentially, leading to the confiscation of their property. The UK House of Lords said that such a racially discriminatory and confiscatory law of this sort was so grave an infringement of human rights that the UK courts ought to refuse to recognize it as a law at all.

A more recent example was a case heard by the UK House of Lords in which it was called upon to enforce an Iraqi decree that essentially confiscated ten aircraft owned by a Kuwaiti airline and parked at a Kuwaiti airport while Kuwait had been invaded by Iraq. Using the machinery of the state, the Iraqi government passed a resolution that purported to dissolve the Kuwaiti airline and transfer its property to an Iraqi airline.

By the time the case made its way to the UK courts, the global community had affirmed that Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait was in violation of international law and several UN Security Council resolutions. Even though Iraq later repealed its confiscatory decree, the applicable choice of law rules at the time meant that the Kuwaiti airline had to show the “theft” of the aircraft was illegal in Iraq at the time of the theft. In refusing to give effect to the Iraqi decree that stood in the way of this, the UK Court said this:

“I have already noted that Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and seizure of its assets were a gross violation of established rules of international law of fundamental importance. A breach of international law of this seriousness is a matter of deep concern to the world-wide community of nations. … Enforcement or recognition of this law would be manifestly contrary to the public policy of English law. … Further, it would sit uneasily with the almost universal condemnation of Iraq’s behaviour and with the military action, in which this country participated, taken against Iraq to compel its withdrawal from Kuwait.”

These examples strongly suggest that there ought to be something approaching global consensus on the repugnancy of a foreign law before invoking the exception. Last time we checked, Canada (unfortunately) isn’t part of a very large club when it comes to recognizing same-sex marriages.

Isn’t the equality rights of same-sex couples of fundamental importance?

To those who argue that substantive equality for a same-sex couple is of foundational importance, and that foreign laws denying that equality are as wrongheaded as the Nazi confiscatory decree of 1941 or Iraq’s self-serving resolution of 1990, I tend to agree. But it remains a leap in my view to say that the global view on same-sex marriage – even involving as it does for us a question of equality rights – is such that any foreign law that don’t align with ours is hardly deserving of being a law at all or would cause grave concern to the worldwide community of nations. These aren’t, after all, laws promulgated by a dictator in North Korea, but by democratically accountable governments in Florida and Mother England.

Even though I’m a strong support of same-sex marriages, I think it would be overstating things to suggest that the denial of their recognition in these circumstances would be found to be “morally repugnant” to a significant majority of Canadians in the way I would expect, say, torture to “shock the conscience” of Canadians generally. By this I should not be taken to mean that recognizing same-sex marriage isn’t “the right thing to do”, but rather that we shouldn’t rush to judge the sanity of other nations when, like it or not, there’s hardly a unanimous view on this issue within our own borders.

So let’s be leaders, not followers!

Whether a majority of Canadians agree with it or not, the law of our land is that Canadian same-sex couples have the same right to marry as heterosexual couples and that right is constitutionally entrenched. So what’s next? Even acknowledging that Canada’s a bit of a lone wolf on the same-sex marriage issue, there’s still the urge to show some international leadership by “exporting” Canadian values in the form of a divorce order for any same-sex couple seeking one.

To do this, Canada would need to change its private international law rules (which are a matter of provincial law under our division of powers) such that the validity of marriages was determined by reference to something other than the law of domicile – at least when it came to same-sex couples. No matter how you formulate such a rule, you necessarily assign priority to Canadian values and beliefs ahead of any foreign or even near-global standard, and you do so in respect to individuals whose connection to Canada is based only on convenience. This, I suggest, would be a wholesale rejection of the “give and take” balance struck by the cooperative spirit that underlies our rules for recognition and enforcement of foreign laws.

What about the Charter?

The dissatisfaction with the result yielded by existing laws has many looking for an exceptional solution. Many, including Macfarlane, have cited the Charter as potential salvation. After all, the Supreme Court of Canada seemed to take as a given in the Same-Sex Marriage Reference that the extension of the right to civil marriage to same-sex couples was in furtherance of the Charter’s equality guarantee. (The Halpern decision out of the Ontario Court of Appeal expressly concluded that the common law definition of marriage that excluded same-sex relationship was contrary to section 15.)  But does this mean that recognizing a foreign law that precludes same-sex marriages is also a violation of the Charter’s equality guarantee? I’m not so sure.

A section 15 analysis isn’t as straightforward as one might think. For starters, not all differential treatment is prohibited by it. In order to run afoul of the Charter, the differential treatment must result from a formal distinction between the claimant and others on the basis of an enumerated or analogous ground, which results in impermissible discrimination.

The equality guarantee is a comparative concept. As such, the courts identify a relevant “comparator group” to determine whether the claimants are the subject of differential treatment on a prohibited ground.

At first blush, the proper comparator group would seem to be foreign heterosexual couples seeking recognition in Canada. After all, if the Florida/UK couple had been heterosexual, Canada would have no trouble recognizing their marriage as valid in the same circumstances.

Defining the comparator group this way, I argue, doesn’t get us very far. This is because the root of the Florida/UK couple’s difficulty isn’t just that they’re a same-sex couple, but that they’re from Florida and the UK. Put another way, if the exact same couple had been domiciled in Argentina or Iceland – where same-sex marriages are legal — before coming here to get married, we’d recognize their marriage as valid in Canada.

The fact remains that their homosexuality at least contributes to the differential treatment they’re facing now in Canada. This doesn’t mean, however, that Canada is discriminating against them on the basis of their sexual orientation. Assuming for a moment (because I haven’t checked) that Florida and the UK have laws similar to Canada’s which prohibits marriages between siblings, we would not have recognized as valid the marriage of a heterosexual brother-and-sister couple either. So, I ask, on what basis does our “differential treatment” truly arise?

In any event, refusing to recognizing Florida/UK marriage law on Charter grounds is not really very different from saying you’re going to refuse to recognize foreign law whenever it conflicts with Canadian law. To be sure, the Charter by its constitutional status isn’t just any ordinary Canadian law that could give rise to a conflict. Such conflicts would by definition be serious indeed. But even a conflict with the Charter isn’t necessarily going to give rise to a repugnancy so severe it would shock the conscience of the global community. To the outside world, even qualifying our conflicts of law rules to favour Canadian law over foreign law only on “really important Charter issues” could reasonably be interpreted as a rejection of an international baseline that has allowed us to play well together in the world’s sandbox for a decently long time.

At the risk of betraying our political leanings, we at DoubleHearsay aren’t thrilled about having the Conservatives running a majority government. And we strongly support same-sex marriage, the full blown version rather than some watered down “civil union” consolation prize. Having considered the DOJ’s position and the existing laws regarding the recognition and enforcement of foreign marriages, however, we believe the current criticism leveled against the federal government to be entirely misplaced.

First, a bit of background to the divorce application itself. It is brought on behalf of an unidentified lesbian couple who married in 2005 and separated in 2009. Neither partner has ever lived in Canada. They are residents of Florida and the United Kingdom. They came to Ontario in 2005 to get married, presumably because as a same-sex couple they weren’t legally entitled to marry each other in their home jurisdictions.

To state the obvious, each state is free to set its own legal requirements for the validity of a marriage. These requirements can be broken down into two categories: essential validity requirements (e.g., who is entitled to marry whom) and formal validity requirements (e.g., what constitutes a legal marriage ceremony).

In Ontario, being a member of a same-sex couple is not a bar to the essential validity of one’s marriage. In Florida and the UK, it is. (Another example of a marriage that would be invalid based on essential validity rules is an incestuous relationship prohibited by the Marriage (Prohibited Degrees) Act, the law that says you can’t marry your sister or your grandmother.)

So if different states have different rules for what counts as a valid marriage, what happens to married couples seeking to have their marriages “recognized” in a foreign state? The answer to this is brought to you by private international law, which sets rules for when to defer to other countries’ marriage laws and when to dig in and apply one’s own laws.

In Canada, the general rule is that the formal validity of a marriage is determined by the law of the country in which the marriage took place (lex loci celebrationis). The rules for determining the essential validity of a marriage are a bit more complicated. The traditional rule in Canada is that, in order for a marriage to be essentially valid, each spouse must have been entitled to marry the other according to the law of each party’s country of residence before the marriage took place (the “dual domicile” approach to the lex loci domicilli rule).

Under the dual domicile rule, even though the formal validity of the unidentified lesbian couple’s marriage may not be in issue (given that they were married in Ontario, presumably according to the ceremonial requirements of Ontario), there can be no doubt that their marriage was “essentially” invalid based on the laws of their places of residence, namely Florida and the UK, since neither of those jurisdictions permit legal marriages between same-sex partners.

This is precisely what Sean Gaudet, counsel for the Attorney General of Canada, argued before the Ontario court where the lesbian couple had sought a divorce. That is, as a matter of Canadian law, the couple is not validly married in Canada and never had been.

To be clear, if the couple had been residents of Canada before they were married, the validity of their marriage would not be an issue. So the criticism that Canada is somehow changing its position on the validity of same-sex marriages is quite misplaced. The problem in this case isn’t Canada’s law on same-sex marriages; it’s the UK’s and Florida’s prohibition on same-sex marriages and the fact that this couple resided in those two jurisdictions before getting married in Canada.

In order to provide a “fix” to the current situation, Canada would actually have to change its private international law rules for the recognition of foreign marriages to something closer to “the law of Canada no matter what”. In the world of private international law, that kind of xenophobic approach offends the principles of international comity and is generally frowned upon. After all, it’s in Canadians’ interests to have other countries recognize Canadian law in certain circumstances, and for that to happen each country has to be seen as reasonable in its approach to private international law.

In addition to the “dual domicile” approach to the lex loci domicilli rule, there’s also a rarely applied approach that recognizes the law of the “intended matrimonial home” as governing the essential validity of a marriage, in cases where the intended location is different from where the couple actually resided before the marriage. By rarely applied, we note that Canadian courts have cautioned that this innovative approach would apply only in exceptional circumstances. In the case of the Florida/UK lesbian couple, this alternative approach wouldn’t be very helpful; there’s no evidence that either of them ever intended on staying in Canada after getting married.

The couple is also claiming that Ontario negligently misrepresented that the couple’s marriage in that province was legally valid. We have no idea what the couple were told when they applied for their marriage licences, but there’s little doubt that the domestic recognition of same-sex marriages in Canada spawned a lucrative wedding tourism industry at the expense of foreign same-sex couples looking to get hitched. Could more have been done to warn these foreign couples that there was no guarantee that their marriage would be recognized at home (much less in Canada, given its application of the lex loci domicilli rule)? Possibly. But at the risk of appearing unsympathetic, it seems to us that any couple that jet sets to a foreign country to take advantage of more favourable marriage laws knows that they’re on questionable legal footing as far as their marriage is concerned.

If this couple gets anywhere with their negligent misrepresentation claim, you can bet Las Vegas chapels will be doubling up on the waivers we imagine they get foreign couples to sign before tying the knot before their favourite Elvis impersonator.

UPDATE: For more discussion of comity and why it’s a good thing, click here. For a contrary view, see Macfarlane’s post in Macleans here.

But can the same really be said of the Government’s decision to waive its entitlement to recover at least some of Dave Basi’s estimated $3 million in legal defence fees? The government lent its credit card to Messrs. Basi and Virk when charges were laid years ago, but only on condition that the fees be paid back. So clever was the government in securing its rights that the Province took a mortgage interest in Dave Basi’s home. Granted, it was a second mortgage, but a mortgage nonetheless.

You’ll forgive us for being absolutely perplexed by the AG’s explanation that it would have been too costly to attempt recovery of the legal fees owed by Basi. The AG’s spokesperson has been quoted as saying that, at best, the Province would only have recovered a “miniscule” amount. The property was last assessed at $518,000. Given that 2010 property tax assessments in BC were somewhat deflated, we would expect the property to fetch even more than that. (The Globe and Mail recently published an estimate of $857,000). It’s nearly impossible to tell from public documents how much Basi owed on his first mortgage, but assuming it hasn’t been refinanced since the Province secured its charge in 2005 — when the value of Basi’s home was $300,000 less than the most recently assessed value, it stands to reason that there would have been well over $300,000 in untapped equity for the Province to draw on.

Enforcing a mortgage security interest in neither rocket science nor exceptionally expensive. If Basi defaulted on the “loan”, the Province would have been entitled to seek a court order for sale of the property. The first mortgagee would take its cut, and the Province could pull the remainder. There would be a handful of contested court applications to deal with, but, fortunately, the Province has a crack team of litigators to deal with those. Sure, it would have only been a fraction of the $3 million in legal fees owed by Basi, but it would have appropriately allocated at least a portion of the burden of Basi’s legal fees where it belongs.

From a cost-benefit perspective, enforcing the loan would have made sense to us. But even if you’re extremely conservative with the numbers, there was nothing preventing the Province from sitting on its rights for a few more years while letting Basi pick up some further equity in the property and swooping in later to take its cut.

Reports indicate that the Province waived its right to recover Basi’s legal fees as part of the plea deal. While the decision to extend the plea deal was Mr. Bernardino’s alone, the decision to waive the legal fees fell to the Deputy AG and Deputy Minister of Finance. Given that the obvious alternative to reaching a deal was an embarrassingly public airing of the BC Liberals’ dirty laundry in open court, we can’t help but wonder whether waiving Basi’s legal fees was a politically driven call. It certainly wasn’t an economically or principle-driven one.

(Michael Turschic/CBC)

Despite the CBC’s attention-grabbing headline in its article, “Prostitution laws struck down by Ont. court“, absolutely nothing has changed — yet — with Canada’s anti-prostitution laws. Here’s a quick refresher on why the Ontario Superior Court of Justice’s decision in R. v. Bedford hasn’t yet resulted in a free-for-all in our nation’s red light districts.

Firstly, as is now the norm in any court challenge to the constitutionality of a law, the Court’s declaration of invalidity has been suspended for 30 days to allow the government time to work through certain “kinks”, such as the possibility that “unlicensed brothels may be operated in a way that may not be in the public interest”. (As an aside, we note the Court took the surprising position that delaying the declaration of invalidity for a longer period would somehow contribute to the danger faced by prostitutes, even though it cited the fact that the laws in question “are rarely enforced” as a reason not to strike down the law without leaving time to enact something in its place.)

Second, and let’s be absolutely clear here, despite the name of the Court this decision does not have binding effect throughout Canada. The Ontario Superior Court of Justice is the court of first instance in this matter. If someone else was charged with a similar offence elsewhere in Ontario, a judge of the same level court might (but need not necessarily) apply the same result for reasons of consistency. But there’s nothing forcing trial judges in other provinces from reaching the exact opposite conclusion on the same issue.

Even if this decision were upheld on appeal to the Ontario Court of Appeal, the decision would at best be “persuasive” to judges in other provinces. It would take a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada — something that isn’t likely to happen for at least several years — or corresponding  judgments in the courts of appeal in other provinces, for the effect of the “striking down” of this legislation to be felt outside of Ontario. That’s right, even though prostitutes in BC are subject to the same Criminal Code of Canada as prostitutes in Ontario, the interpretation of these provisions can diverge from province to province.

And that’s assuming the 30 day stay of the decision isn’t extended by further court order.

Rogers Communications Inc. will no longer be able to tout itself as offering Canada’s most reliable network, thanks to an injunction obtained by Telus Communications Co. 

On November 24, 2009, the Supreme Court of British Columbia issued reasons for judgment in a case challenging Rogers’ legal right to advertise that it provides Canada’s fastest and most reliable network.  Telus based its challenge on section 52 of the federal Competition Act, which prevents “knowingly or recklessly mak[ing] a representation to the public that is false or misleading in a material respect.”

As explained in the reasons issued by Mr. Justice Grauer, wireless service in Canada has historically been provided using two different network protocols, the “Global System for Mobile Communications” (GSM) and “Code Division Multiple Access” (CDMA).  Telus and Bell historically operated on CDMA networks, while Rogers operated on a GSM network.

By 2006, Rogers was using a second generation “EDGE” network that provided peak data speeds of up to 384 Kbps, while Telus had developed a third generation “EVDO” network that increased peak data speeds to 2 Mbps.

Rogers launched its advanced third generation HSPA technology on top of its existing GSM/EDGE network in September 2007.  In the 25 Canadian cities tapped for the HSPA upgrade, Rogers’ customers are provided with peak data speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps.  Elsewhere, Rogers’ customers rely on the existing GSM/EDGE network.

Based on Rogers post-2007 upgrade, which provided an advantage for data transmission capability (enabling Rogers, in turn, to exclusively market the iPhone), Rogers advertised its network as both Canada’s fastest and most reliable.  Since then, Rogers switched its focus to its reputation as “Canada’s Most Reliable Network”, including in a campaign launched November 2, 2009 and scheduled to run until December 28, 2009.

Meanwhile, Telus joined forced with Bell to construct a new national wireless network using the most advanced HSPA technology available.  Telus essentially built the western half while Bell built the eastern half, both in parallel to their existing EVDO networks.  The new national network launched on November 5, 2009.  Telus argued that, in doing so, it completely nullified Rogers’ advantage, and has actually leap-frogged ahead of Rogers because Telus’ HSPA technology is newer and available more widely.

Thus, Telus argued, it was false or at least misleading for Rogers to continue to advertise that its network is Canada’s fastest and most reliable.

Telus’ claims under the Competition Act haven’t been decided yet.  But the victory for Telus flows from the Court’s ruling that, for now, Rogers must back away from its advertising claims of having Canada’s most reliable network. 

The timing of the injunction hasn’t been finalized yet, nor has its terms.  The Court acknowledges that the busy Christmas shopping season is upon us.  Both Rogers and Telus have been summoned back to Court on November 29^th to determine the precise wording of the injunction order, including the amount of time Rogers will be granted to pull its offending advertising materials.  One things seems certain, though: Rogers’ highly successful and uniquitous advertising slogan is headed for the dustbin.

An interesting point argued by Rogers was that, even if its advertising was misleading, Telus could easily launch its own competing advertising campaign to set the record straight.  The Court dismissed this “marketplace of ideas” line of argument, however.  Requiring this of Telus would be too much to ask, the Court stated.  We imagine Telus will find a way of getting the word out regardless, probably with the help of those cute animals we’ve come to enjoy seeing in those “The World is Friendly” ads.

Suzuki v. Munroe, a judgment released yesterday by the BC Supreme Court, is the kind of case that begins to read like many other unfortunate squabbles. You half expect it to break out into Denningesque prose. Homeowner installs central air conditioning; neighbour complains about the noise. Homeowner installs surveillance camera that creeps into neighbour’s yard; neighbour complains about the invasion of privacy. It’s the kind of case you expect to end with the judge declining to intervene and reprimanding both parties for refusing to play nicely and wasting the Court’s time. Except not.

Like many Canadians getting accustomed to the effects of global warming, Janice and Richard Munroe found their poorly ventilated Coquitlam home to be uncomfortable in warm weather. In 2006, they purchased and installed a central air conditioning unit outside their home, which happened to be just a few feet away from neighbouring May and Kazuo Suzuki. The Suzukis, who rely on open windows for cooling and ventilation, returned home one Sunday evening in June only to learn that their pesky neighbours had put in a new air conditioning unit. The resulting noise, which the Suzukis described as sounding “like a lawnmower”, kept Mrs. Suzuki awake all night. Mr. Suzuki retreated to a corner of his basement.

The very next day, Mrs. Suzuki complained to the City of Coquitlam about the noise. She also says she negotiated a ceasefire agreement with the Munroes’ son (which the Munroes deny), pursuant to which the Munroes agreed not to operate the AC after 9pm. If it ever existed, the truce didn’t long. A few days later, the AC started running until “nearly midnight” and was cranked up again as early as 5:30 in the morning. None of this mattered as far as the City of Coquitlam’s bylaw inspector was concerned, though. The inspector couldn’t find evidence of any bylaw infraction, although, as the Court pointed out, it wasn’t obvious the air conditioner was turned on when the inspector dropped by for a visit.

It didn’t take long before the Suzukis and the Munroes lawyered up. Nuisance claims were filed. Experts were retained. Psychological injury was claimed. Injunctions were sought and obtained.

Oh, and then there was the issue of the Munroes’ surveillance camera. Mounted on the side of their home between the two houses, its view took into a portion of the Suzukis’ entrance, front yard and driveway. In response, the Suzukis amended their Statement of Claim to add a claim of nuisance in relation to the surveillance camera.

After going through the law of nuisance and reviewing the evidence of chronic stress disorder, acoustic decibel levels, and the standard fare of “he said – she said”, Mr. Justice Verhoeven referenced what might be described as the Law of Neighbourliness: “The Munroes did not consult with the Suzukis prior to installing the air conditioning unit just a few feet away from the Suzukis’ property. This would have been neighbourly and prudent, but they were not obliged to do so.”

But, after considering the “social utility” of air conditioners and the lack of evidence about the Suzukis being “abnormally sensitive individuals”, Justice Verhoeven concluded that the noise caused by the Munroes’ air conditioner was indeed unreasonable by objective standards. Nuisance established.

As for the surveillance camera, the Court had no doubt that it was an unreasonable interference with the use and enjoyment of the Suzukis’ property, especially since there was no reason why the Munroes couldn’t redirect their camera to avoid capturing the neighbouring property. The resulting inference: the Munroes installed the camera and refused to redirect it in order to provoke and annoy the Suzukis. Nuisance established.

The result: $4,000 to Mrs. Suzuki and $2,000 to Mr. Suzuki (who was less affected psychologically by the nuisances than his wife). And an injunction: the Munroes may not operate their air conditioner such that it causes sound beyond 55 decibels between 7am and 10pm, and 45 decibels during the rest of the day, “measured at any point along the Munroe-Suzuki property line”.

The Munroes are also prohibited from using a surveillance camera that monitors any part of the Suzukis’ property.

And the tell-tale sign that these neighbours don’t really get along: the Court required each of the Munroes to execute a statutory declaration to be delivered to the Suzukis confirming compliance with the order prohibiting use of the surveillance camera.

We shudder to think of the legal fees billed on this file. Read the entire judgment (and find coordinates for fun with Google Street View) here: http://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/jdb-txt/SC/09/14/2009BCSC1403.htm