The Court of Appeal’s decision in W.P. v. Alberta is a reminder of the finality of Alberta’s ultimate limitation period. It runs from of date of injury even when the claimant is unaware of the injury or incapable of discovering it. It pauses only in narrow circumstances. It’s harsh.
The appellants were formerly resident students at the Alberta School for the Deaf. They alleged physical, sexual, and emotional abuse by their teachers, staff, and other students. They alleged that the abuse occurred at varying times between the early 1960s until 1991.
When the appellants applied for certification of the action as a class proceeding, Alberta cross-applied for summary judgment. Alberta submitted that the appellants commenced their action after the expiry of the ultimate limitation period in section 3(1)(b) of the Limitations Act (which I don’t quote here because it’s very long, but the link takes you right to it). The chambers judge agreed and dismissed the action.
Section (3)(1)(b) provides that if a claimant doesn’t seek a remedial order within ten years after the claim arose, the defendant is entitled to immunity from liability in respect of the claim. Time begins to run from the date of the negligent or wrongful act. Because time runs from a fixed date, the discoverability principle doesn’t apply:
[29] […] the ultimate limitation period tolls without regard to when the alleged harm occurred, or when the fact of its occurrence was discovered or even discoverable. Rather, it begins to run merely upon the occurrence of the breach of the duty – in this case, upon the occurrence of the alleged abuse. This is not only the plain effect of the statutory language, but was its anticipated and intended effect: Limitations, Alberta Law Reform Institute Report No 2007 ABCA 347 (CanLII), 55, December 1989 at 70-71, 425 AR 123
The act does provide for the suspension of the ultimate limitation period in two circumstances. Section 4 of the act suspends time while the defendant fraudulently conceals the occurrence of the injury:
4(1) The operation of the limitation period provided by section 3(1)(b) is suspended during any period of time that the defendant fraudulently conceals the fact that the injury for which a remedial order is sought has occurred.
(2) Under this section, the claimant has the burden of proving that the operation of the limitation period provided by section 3(1)(b) was suspended
Section 5 suspends time when the claimant is a “person under disability”, which, pursuant to the definition in section 1(h) is either a represented adult as defined in the Adult Guardianship and Trusteeship Act, a person for whom a certificate of incapacity is in effect under the Public Trustee Act, or an adult who is unable to make reasonable judgments in respect of the claim:
5(1) The operation of the limitation periods provided by this Act is suspended during any period of time that the claimant is a person under disability.
(2) The claimant has the burden of proving that the operation of the limitation periods provided by this Act was suspended under this section.
The appellants relied on both sections 4 and 5. They argued that the teachers and staff of the school concealed the injuries by instructing students to tell no one about the abuse and by providing inadequate education so that the students couldn’t communicate it.
The Court of Appeal laid out the three part test for establishing fraudulent concealment:
[34] […] to demonstrate fraudulent concealment, as alleged here, which suspends the running of the ultimate limitation period, the appellants must show (1) that Alberta (or its agents or servants) perpetrated some kind of fraud; (2) that the fraud concealed the fact of their injury; and (3) that the appellants each exercised reasonable diligence to discover the fraud.
The Court of Appeal found that the appellants couldn’t satisfy the test. Though the injuries caused by abuse of children often manifest slowly and imperceptibility so that “only the passage of time and maturity allows the victim to realize the magnitude of the harms suffered, and their cause”, this has no bearing on whether the injuries have been concealed. The appellants had no evidence that they were laboring under a misapprehension of the fact of having suffered an injury:
[36] […] While they might not have known until later that they could sue, that is not the same thing as having the fact of the wrongful conduct and its effects deliberately concealed from them. Nor does being told at the time not to discuss the abuse support an allegation of fraudulent concealment of the fact of the injury. While the evidence here strongly suggests that each of the appellants were aware of the wrongfulness of the alleged acts well before the expiry of the ultimate limitation period, we need not decide that here. It suffices to conclude that the issue of fraudulent concealment is insufficiently meritorious to require a trial.
The Court of Appeal also rejected the appellants’ reliance on section 5:
The appellants do not say that they were represented adults under the Adult Guardianship and Trusteeship Act or persons subject to a certificate of incapacity under the Public Trustee Act. And, while each of them has encountered difficulties in life, they do not show how such difficulties rendered them unable to make reasonable judgments in respect of their claims. Even the facts alleged by EP with respect to her time spent in psychiatric hospital care, which might form part of an account of a disability which suspends the operation of the ultimate limitation period, is on its own insufficient to show that the issue has merit. We are not told, for example, what that care entailed, when she was in that care, or for how long.
The Court of Appeal concluded its analysis with a warning about the high bar for invoking sections 4 or 5:
It is difficult – and [the Legislature] intended that it be difficult – for plaintiffs to persuade a court that the ultimate limitation period should not run for a period of time. It will be a rare case where deliberate concealment of the fact of an injury, or a condition which disables a claimant from making reasonable judgments, can be established within the meaning of sections 4 and 5 of the Act.
I also note the Court of Appeal’s warning that a class proceeding has no special status that allows it to survive where it would otherwise be statute-barred:
[21] Simply put, a class proceeding is just one procedural mode of advancing a claim. The mere fact that a claim is advanced by way of a class proceeding does not endow it with special status allowing it to survive where the same claim would otherwise be doomed. More particularly, it remains subject to all the tools furnished by Part 7 of the Rules of Court for resolving claims without a full trial, including summary judgment […].
[22] The foregoing applies with equal force where the summary judgment application is based upon the expiry of a limitation period relative to the claim of a proposed representative plaintiff. Where a proposed representative plaintiff’s claim is shown to be time-barred, there is no good reason for permitting the issue of certification to continue consuming judicial and litigants’ resources. Indeed, there is good reason for not doing so, since the representative plaintiff must be a member of the class. Allowing a representative plaintiff’s clearly time-barred claim to proceed further would defy the Legislature’s intent that the class proceeding be brought only by someone with a personal stake in the outcome [internal citations omitted].