Noble V Alley
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OR:

''Noble and Wolf v Alley''
951 Year 951 (Roman numerals, CMLI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * King Berengar II of Italy seizes Liguria, with help from the feudal lord Oberto I. He reorganizes the territorie ...
S.C.R. 64 is a famous
Supreme Court of Canada The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC; , ) is the highest court in the judicial system of Canada. It comprises nine justices, whose decisions are the ultimate application of Canadian law, and grants permission to between 40 and 75 litigants eac ...
decision where the Court struck down a
restrictive covenant A covenant, in its most general and covenant (historical), historical sense, is a solemn promise to engage in or refrain from a specified action. Under historical English common law, a covenant was distinguished from an ordinary contract by the ...
that restricted ownership of a section of land to "persons of the white or
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".


Case history

In 1933, Annie Noble had purchased a lot for a cottage in the
Beach O' Pines Beach O' Pines is a private gated community located on the shores of Lake Huron in Lambton County, Ontario, Canada. It is located immediately outside of the community of Grand Bend, Ontario, and is bordered to the northwest by Lake Huron, the so ...
area on
Lake Huron Lake Huron ( ) is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is shared on the north and east by the Canadian province of Ontario and on the south and west by the U.S. state of Michigan. The name of the lake is derived from early French ex ...
. She decided in 1948 to sell the lot to Bernard Wolf. However, it was noticed that the original deed contained the following clause: :"(f) The lands and premises herein described shall never be sold, assigned, transferred, leased, rented or in any manner whatsoever alienated to, and shall never be occupied or used in any manner whatsoever by any person of the
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,
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, Semitic,
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or coloured race or blood, it being the intention and purpose of the Grantor, to restrict the ownership, use, occupation and enjoyment of the said recreational development, including the lands and premises herein described, to persons of the white or Caucasian race not excluded by this clause." Though Wolf was Jewish, Noble still wanted to sell him the land, and so they applied to the court to have the covenant nullified, facing opposition from the "Pines" community. Noble and Wolf cited a 1945 decision in ''
Re Drummond Wren ''Re Drummond Wren'' 945O.R. 778 (Ont. H.C.) is a decision by the Ontario High Court, presided by Justice Mackay, regarding the validity of a racially motivated restrictive covenant. The Workers' Educational Association purchased a lot in East Y ...
'', where the Ontario Court struck down a discriminatory covenant. However, at trial and on appeal the courts upheld the restriction. The Supreme Court, in a six to one ruling, held that the covenant was invalid. They agreed with the lower court's dismissal of ''Drummond Wren'' and instead looked at the law of restrictive covenants and held that the language used in the restriction on alienation was too uncertain. As Rand J explained in his judgment, such covenants would need to comply with the rule expressed in ''
Tulk v Moxhay ''Tulk v Moxhay'' is a landmark English land law case which decided that in certain cases a restrictive covenant can "run with the land" (i.e. a future owner will be subject to the restriction) in equity. It is the reason that Leicester Square e ...
'', in that they "should touch or concern the land as contradistinguished from a collateral effect". As the covenant in this case was "directed not to the land or to some mode of its use, but to transfer by act of the purchaser", it had to fail in that it was "impossible to set such limits to the lines of race or blood as would enable a court to say in all cases whether a proposed purchaser is or is not within the ban".


Impact

While the case went through the courts, the
Legislature of Ontario The Legislative Assembly of Ontario (OLA; ) is the legislative chamber of the Canadian province of Ontario. Its elected members are known as Members of Provincial Parliament (MPPs). Bills passed by the Legislative Assembly are given royal ass ...
passed an act that declared such restrictive covenants to be "void and of no effect," but it only applied to ones created on or after March 24, 1950, its date of
Royal assent Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in othe ...
. While the covenants in the deeds constituting the community at Beach O' Pines were held to be ineffective, others created before the amendment (as long as they complied with ''Tulk v Moxhay'') were still considered to be valid, as the
Ontario Court of Appeal The Court of Appeal for Ontario (frequently mistakenly referred to as the Ontario Court of Appeal) (ONCA is the abbreviation for its neutral citation) is the appellate court for the province of Ontario, Canada. The seat of the court is Osgoode H ...
stated that they did not offend public policy.


See also

''
Shelley v. Kraemer ''Shelley v. Kraemer'', 334 U.S. 1 (1948), is a landmark United States Supreme Court case that held that racially restrictive housing covenants (deed restrictions) cannot legally be enforced. The case arose after an African-American family purch ...
'', an analogous case (but broader in its effect) decided by the
United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...
in 1948.


References


External links

* {{lexum-scc2, 1951, 0, 64, 13, 1950 Covenant (law) Supreme Court of Canada cases Canadian civil rights case law Canadian property case law 1950 in Canadian case law Anti-discrimination law in Canada Jews and Judaism in Canada Racial segregation Lambton County Ethnic minorities Events of National Historic Significance (Canada) Antisemitism in Canada Anti-black racism in Canada Racial antisemitism