Successful Appeal to Amend Pleadings in Multi-Party Crane Collapse Litigation

Counsel to Forgeron Engineering Limited

Lead by

APA Inc. Experts Conseils/Consultants and Forgeron Engineering Limited v. Fares Construction Ltd., 2025 NSCA 42

In a June 10, 2025 decision, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal granted Forgeron Engineering Limited leave to amend its pleadings in complex multi-party litigation arising from a 2019 crane collapse, overturning a lower court ruling and awarding costs against the insurer.

This matter involved an appeal in the context of multi-party litigation stemming from a crane collapse during a 2019 hurricane in Halifax. Our client, Forgeron Engineering Limited, had performed a load test on the crane prior to the collapse. The collapse triggered extensive litigation involving over 200 pleadings, dozens of parties, and more than 28 lawyers.

During productions of documents in 2023, a builder’s risk insurance policy (the “Policy”) from Sovereign General Insurance Company (“Sovereign”) was discovered in Fares’ AOD and that was obtained at the outset of the project. The Policy contained a wrap-up provision with $10M in coverage (the “Policy”). The term in the Policy covers the Crane collapse incident and contains a clause that states “all contractors, subcontractors, project and construction managers, architects, engineers and consultants” fall under the definition of “insured”. Our client did not know the Policy existed when pleadings closed.

As a result, Forgeron brought a motion to amend pleadings to

  1. add Sovereign as a party and;
  2. amend our defences to cross-claims and third/fourth party claims to plead that
    1. Forgeron is an “insured” under the Policy
    2. the claims against Forgeron are pursued by Sovereign in the name of Fares and Lead, who are co-insureds
    3. an insured is barred by law from pursuing a claim against its insured in the name of a co-insured and;
    4. as a result, the claims by Fares and Lead against Forgeron should be dismissed.

The motion to amend was denied by the judge, who applied an incorrect legal standard by focusing on the merits of the amendments rather than their legal sustainability on their face. On appeal, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal agreed with our position and granted Forgeron leave to amend its pleadings. Costs were awarded against the insurer, Sovereign.

The impact of these amendments is significant. As a result of the appeal decision, our client can move to have many of the claims against them dismissed and may potentially have access to $10M in coverage for its defence costs when their prior coverage was capped at $250,000.

Miller Thomson represented Forgeron Engineering Limited with a team comprised of Richard MacGregor and Izabella Chamberland (Commercial and Construction Litigation).

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