Citywide Lawn Care Ltd. v. London Condo Corp.

This small claims court judgment applied the Supreme Court of Canada’s test that a fundamental breach of a contract must have the effect of depriving the other party of substantially the whole benefit that the parties intended under the contract. The Defendant Condominium Corporation had entered into a contract with a snow removal company. The Corporation terminated the contract without providing sixty days notice (as permitted under the contract) when the corporation felt that the snow removal company had not responded in a timely manner after a heavy snowfall.  

The Court held that the company’s failure to remove the snow on the dates in question did not constitute a fundamental breach, and therefore the contract continued. The appropriate remedy would have been for damages to be paid for the unperformed obligations, though the Corporation had not brought forward such a claim. The Court awarded the Plaintiff Snow Removal Contractor the equivalent in damages of the sixty-day notice period under the contract, plus prejudgment interest.