30 Jan 2025
Northern Lights (County) v Wood Canada Limited
Background:
- CNL hired Wood Canada to design and manage a 59 km water line project.
- Wood subcontracted Aldea Engineering Services for the horizontal directional drilling (HDD) design.
- Issues arose during HDD construction (e.g., excessive pulling forces, breaking of tracer wires, "frac-outs").
- EOS (the contractor) claimed the HDD design was not constructible and sought additional payment.
- A third-party engineering review (AE Reports) in 2019 supported EOS' claims, but CNL was only informed in January 2021.
- CNL sued Wood and Aldea in April 2022, alleging faulty HDD design.
Legal Issue:
- Was the lawsuit against Aldea filed after the limitation period expired?
- Aldea argued that CNL had sufficient knowledge of the claim as early as September 2018 (or at latest November 2018) when EOS raised concerns.
- CNL countered that it reasonably relied on Wood/Aldea’s assurances that the design was sound and issues were due to EOS’ incompetence.
Court's Analysis & Ruling:
- The Limitations Act sets a 2-year period from when a party knew or ought to have known about an injury and its cause.
- The judge ruled that CNL reasonably relied on Wood and Aldea’s assurances and did not have full knowledge of the faulty design until January 2021.
- Conclusion: The claim against Aldea was not time-barred and must go to trial. Aldea’s application for summary dismissal was denied.
- No monetary award was granted.