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Word of the Week | With respect to

WITH RESPECT TO



Ontario



Per Hoy A.C.J.O. (Benotto and Lauwers JJ.A. concurring) : Section 15 [of the equipment leases] provides that, "If the Equipment does not operate as represented or warranted by the supplier or manufacturer, or is unsatisfactory for any reason, [lessee] shall make any claims solely against the supplier or manufacturer and shall nevertheless make all rental payments required herein. [Lessee's] obligations hereunder to Lessor will in no way be affected by any seller's, distributor's or manufacturer's representations, warranties or guarantees with respect to the Equipment, express or otherwise, which may exist in lessee's favour."

. . . . .

In Nowegijick v. The Queen, [1983] 1 S.C.R. 29, at p. 39, the Supreme Court of Canada held that the words "in respect of" are "words of the widest possible scope"; the phrase is "probably the widest of any expression intended to convey some connection between two related subject matters". The Supreme Court later applied the same interpretation to the words "with respect to": CanadianOxy Chemicals Ltd. v. Canada (Attorney General), [1999] 1 S.C.R. 743, at paras. 15-17. Admittedly, both of these cases concerned statutory language rather than contractual language, but in both cases the Supreme Court was defining the "ordinary meaning" of the words, not a technical meaning for the purposes of statutory construction. Therefore, these words signal that the scope of the exclusion clause is broad.

(John Deere Financial Inc. v. 1232291 Ontario Inc. (2016), 2016 ONCA 838, 2016 CarswellOnt 17437 (Ont. C.A.) at para. 39, 42 Hoy A.C.J.O. (Benotto and Lauwers JJ.A. concurring))
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