Agricultural Law NetLetter - Sunday, August 21, 2016

HIGHLIGHTS

An Alberta Queen's Bench Master in Chambers has summarily dismissed a claim by a son against his mother for specific performance of an oral agreement for ownership of a farm based on the fact that the son had worked the farm for 30 years, and for unjust enrichment. The Master observed that the son had received a two thirds crop share for the farm in the years he had worked it, and had also lived in a house on the farm for free. The Master held that the son's actions were not unequivocally consistent with an agreement that the farm would be conveyed to him and that part performance which would avoid the application of the Statute of Frauds could not be established. The Master also concluded that the son had not established that his mother was enriched, that he was correspondingly deprived, or that there was the absence of a juristic reason for the work he did on the farm. The Master discussed the elements of this type of claim and distinguished Alberta cases in which unjust enrichment claims by a child against a parent had succeeded. (Jordan v. Skwarek, CALN/2016-020, [2016] A.J. No. 708, Alberta Court of Queen's Bench) NEW CASE LAW

Jordan v. Skwarek;

CALN/2016-020,

Full text: [2016] A.J. No. 708;

2016 ABQB 380,

Alberta Court of Queen's Bench,

Master J.T. Prowse,

July 6, 2016.

Unjust Enrichment -- Farmland -- Claim by a Child Against a Parent.

The Plaintiff, Glenn Jordan ("Glenn") brought an action against his mother, Esther Skwarek ("Glenn's Mother") for farmland which Glenn had farmed for his grandfather, his grandmother and Glenn's Mother.

Glenn alleged that the farm should have been transferred to him as an inheritance following the death of his grandparents. In the alternative, he advanced a claim for unjust enrichment against his mother.

Glenn alleged that he had worked on the farm for 30 years on the basis of an unwritten understanding with his grandfather, grandmother and his mother that he would be entitled to rent the farm on a crop share basis of two thirds to him and one third to them with crop input expenses initially being borne by the same ratio, but later being paid by Glenn in return for his living in the farm house on the land for free.

Glenn's grandfather, who initially owned the farm, passed away in 1983. His grandmother who then owned the farm, passed away in 2002. The farm then passed to his mother. In 2013, Glenn's mother asked Glenn to sign a lease for the farm. Glenn alleged the terms of the lease were...