Loblaw Companies Limited v. Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Company of Canada, 2024 ONCA 145
Every decade or so, a decision of monumental importance to the coverage bar gets handed to us. In 2010, the Supreme Court of Canada gave us Progressive Homes Ltd. v. Lombard General Insurance Co. of Canada. 2010 SCC 33. Before that? We had Alie v. Bertrand & Frère Construction Co. (2002), 222 D.L.R. (4th) 687 in 2002 from Ontario’s Court of Appeal.
Today, we were given a gift: Loblaw Companies Limited v. Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Company of Canada, 2024 ONCA 145. Here, the Court of Appeal for Ontario addressed complex issues regarding the allocation of defence costs among serial insurers, questions regarding time-on-risk in contract and equity, questions regarding relief from forfeiture and pre-tender defence costs, and conflicts of interest and defence reporting agreements. The decision – a whopping 121 pages and nearly 300 paragraphs – has an incredible amount of nuance that will likely fill a chapter in an insurance treatise and form the subject of industry-focused seminars for the next several years.
This article highlights the crucial takeaways most critical to the insurance bar moving forward.