Saskatchewan Wheat Pool will be trying to restore its good name in
provincial court of appeal next month.
The pool is asking the court to throw out a 2001 lower court judgment
in which the pool was ordered to pay more than $120,000 to a Melville,
Sask., farmer.
Last August the lower court ruled that the pool owed Morris Feduk more
than $90,000 in compensatory damages arising from a dispute over a
series of grain deliveries and payments in 1993 and 1994.
Read Also
Supreme Court gives thumbs-up emoji case the thumbs down
Saskatchewan farmer wanted to appeal the court decision that a thumbs-up emoji served as a signature to a grain delivery contract.
In addition, the judge took the unusual step of ordering the pool to
pay Feduk $30,000 in punitive damages for what she called its
“oppressive and high-handed” actions in dealing with Feduk.
In its appeal, which will be heard June 13 in Regina, the pool says it
did not violate any contracts and asks the court to replace the
original judgment with an order that Feduk pay the pool $41,118.13,
plus interest and costs.
The pool’s brief raised questions about the judge’s findings and said
her decision to award punitive damages was inappropriate because “there
is nothing extraordinary about this case” that would justify extra
damages.
In asking the court of appeal to uphold the original judgment,
including the punitive damages, Feduk’s lawyers say the court must
defend farmers against powerful agricultural companies.
“The farming community needs the protection of the court, and the court
should deter SWP and similar grain handling corporations from taking
advantage of the farming community by virtue of their position,” says a
brief submitted by Feduk’s lawyers.
The 24-page judgment handed down by judge Ellen Gunn last August
detailed a series of transactions and disputes between Feduk and the
pool that had its origins in a September 1993 snowstorm.
The resulting crop damage left Feduk unable to fulfil a cash call
agreement to deliver 43 rail cars of No. 1 or 2 canola. Feduk attempted
to buy out the last six cars of the contract but the pool refused.
The relationship went downhill from there, with the written decision
describing a long list of disagreements and disputes between the two
sides over grain deliveries and payments over the following seven
months.
The judgment consisted of three parts:
- Feduk was ordered to pay the pool $19,320, plus interest, for the
unfulfilled cash call contract.
- The pool was ordered to pay Feduk $19,920.98 for unpaid canola and
barley deliveries and $70,528.76 for money owing from the sale of his
SWP shares, plus interest.
- The pool was ordered to pay $30,000 in punitive damages.
Gunn’s written decision constituted a searing indictment of the pool’s
behaviour in its dealing with Feduk.
In every significant instance in which the pool’s version of events
differed from Feduk’s, she accepted the farmer’s. She found that an
unidentified pool employee forged Feduk’s signature on a contract, that
the pool intentionally deceived Feduk about contractual agreements,
that the pool refused to pay Feduk for grain he delivered and that it
withheld money owed to Feduk from the sale of SWP shares.
In light of all that, she ordered the company to pay Feduk punitive
damages.
“I find the SWP’s actions towards Mr. Feduk to be extreme in nature and
to be deserving of punishment,” she wrote.
