COMPENDIUM OF SUMMARIES OF JUDICIAL DECISIONS IN ENVIRONMENT RELATED CASES

CANADA

Canada - Liability of Company Officials

R. v. BLACKBIRD HOLDINGS LIMITED and GEORGE CROWE, Controlling Shareholder

(1990) 6 C.E.L.R (N.S.) 119 ONTARIO PROVINCIAL COURT

The accused Crowe entered into a contract in 1974 with the Goodyear Tyre & Rubber Company on behalf of his former company Burprom which went out of business in the early 1980's, to purchase empty drums and remove and dispose of waste material from Goodyear's property. The accused Blackbird Holdings was another company also controlled by Crowe, which owned the property on which the drums were buried.

To the knowledge of Goodyear, Burprom with whom the contract was made had no ability to deal with such materials. The contract expressly stated that Burprom shall protect and save Goodyear from any fines or penalties provided for by federal, provincial, municipal or common law and that Burprom shall under no circumstances imply or mention that any such materials are products of Goodyear.

In May 1990, charges were brought as a result of a complaint from the tenant of the accused, that the water taken from a well on the accused's property was contaminated. One hundred and eighty-five drums were excavated from the site and many were found leaking and oozing liquid, many had no lids on them when buried. The contamination had spread to adjoining wells. The chemicals leaking from the drums were determined to be human carcinogens.

Decision

The accused were found guilty. The company was fined a total of Can$ 90,000; Crowe was sentenced to six months imprisonInent on the Water Resources Act charge and to three months concurrent sentence on each of the other two offences under the Environmental Protection Act. Crowe's denial of any knowledge of how the drums got buried on his property was not believed by the trial judge. He also argued that the drums must have been actually buried during the time set out in the charge, i.e. May 1988 to January 1990.

The judge noted that the contaminants were human carcinogens and that extensive clean up would be needed at taxpayers' expense.