The Honourable Russell Brown, a Supreme Court Justice, discussed Medicine Hat's early legal history during a gala dinner on Thursday commemorating the 100th anniversary of the construction of the city's courthouse. - News Photo Collin Gallant
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant
Medicine Hat’s early legal history appears to have revolved around love and money, or rather money and then love, according to a Supreme Court justice who helped toast the 100th anniversary of the city’s courthouse on Thursday.
Russell Brown gave the after-dinner address to a gala dinner at Medalta Potteries, with 120 members of the legal community in attendance at the event staged by the Legal Archives Society of Alberta.
Brown, a former Alberta judge named to the Supreme Court in 2012, discussed select cases that were introduced in Medicine Hat, but were eventually settled at the Supreme Court in Ottawa.
“It strikes me as remarkable how the much the fortunes of Medicine Hat occupied the time of the Supreme Court of Canada, which did not hear many cases during that era,” he said.
“Many of these cases are about money or business, but there is love, too… Law is the product of the people and places where it’s made.”
For Medicine Hat, at a time of settlement of the west, Brown said, the legal decisions made reflect its industrious and enterprising nature.
Selected cases touched on real estate deals during the land boom, then bust in the city and greater region in the early 1910s – all of which set down important precedents of contract law.
Another involved a wealthy widower, several versions of his will and a “seamstress” companion whose relationship with the octogenarian was most delicately described in court documents.
“It’s like a literary review for the ages,” said Brown, noting that while the story may titillate, the top court’s split opinion set the precedent that being in love did not constitute undue influence.
“It’s something for the romantics in attendance.”
Stacy Kaufeld, the executive director of the Legal Archives Society, said the evening was the first event staged by the society in three years, mostly owning to the pandemic, but it was a fitting occasion.
“It is so important to maintain history, protect that valuable history, that courthouse, and legal community is very cognizant of its history,” he said.
The twice-postponed event was closed by local Queen’s Bench Justice Dallas Miller, the chief force behind organizing the dinner.
Five cases from the early 20th century that emanated from Medicine Hat courthouse comprised the talk, touching on several points on law but also the character of the times and Medicine Hat’s most notable legal mind, Ivan C. Rand.
He arrived in the city to practise law in 1912 after graduating from Harvard, was eventually the attorney general of his home province of New Brunswick and a supreme court justice.
“To my mind, Rand was the greatest justice to the supreme Court of Canada, and certainly in the top five, said Brown.
During Rand’s time in private practice with local firm of Laidlaw Blanchard and Rand (which continues today as Pritchard and Company), Medicine Hat saw a speculative run up on land.
Justices were called upon to iron out land contracts and options as sellers and buyers drew up their own terms and correspondence to act as contracts.
Eventually, though, the tenor of cases reversed from sellers feeling cheated as prices rose, to remorseful buyers looking to back out of deals as conditions soured, said Brown.
Another involved a shareholder agreement in a failed attempt to create a steel-making business in the city.
The most complex matter involved the notably more successful creation of a partnership to exploit the Etzikom gas fields and the creation of the Northwest Nitro Chemical Company.
New British Dominion Petroleum, which owned half the field, also was provided a founding one-third share in the fertilizer plant enterprise that would consume half the gas produced.
That led to an objection by driller Mid-Con. Oil and Gas, the field’s other joint owner, which eventually prevailed.
