The Plaintiff applied to amend its Statement of Claim pursuant to Rules 3.62 and 3.65. The Plaintiff had originally pleaded only breach of contract, but after Questioning was conducted, it learned of additional causes of action based in negligent or fraudulent misrepresentation. Justice Yamauchi noted that Rule 13.7 requires that Pleadings give particulars of fraud and misrepresentation. The Defendant and Third Party, Rowland Seeds, opposed the Application to amend.

Justice Yamauchi referred to the four exceptions to amending Pleadings listed in Dow Chemical Canada Inc v Nova Chemicals Corp, 2010 ABQB 524 (CanLII): whether the amendment would cause serious, non-compensable prejudice; whether it was beyond the applicable limitation period; whether the amendment was “hopeless”; or whether there was an element of bad faith associated with not pleading the amendment in the first instance. As the added claims related to the events described in the original Statement of Claim, they were saved by the operation of s. 6 of the Limitations Act, RSA 2000, c L-12. Further, there was no serious prejudice that would result from the proposed amendments that would not be compensable in Costs.

Rowland Seeds also argued that the Plaintiff failed to comply with Rule 1.2(2)(b) by delaying in applying to amend its Pleadings. However, Justice Yamauchi noted that Rule 1.2(2)(a) requires the identification of the real issues in dispute, and one purpose of the Rules does not outweigh another. Yamauchi J. allowed some amendments to the Statement of Claim with a few exceptions for amendments which did not have sufficient evidence to support the allegations.