Significant lawsuits of New Brunswick are described, if not elsewhere, here (in chronological order). Consolidations of statute law were published in 1854, 1877, 1903, 1927, 1952, and 1973. A useful "Index to the Private Acts of the Province of New Brunswick, 1929-2012" exists at the New Brunswick branch of the Canadian Bar Association. For early history, see the series published by the Carswell Company: Reports of Cases Determined by the Supreme Court of New Brunswick.
Gesner v Cairns (1852)
Gesner maintained that Cairns trespassed the property leased by the former, felled trees on it, spoliated it and expropriated 1,000 tons of valuable material. Gesner maintained the material to be asphaltum, while Cairns was a coal miner. The defendant was evidently permitted to mine coal, not asphaltum. The evidence presented to the jury was of a technical nature and regarded the nature of the material. The defendant won the day.
Maher v Town Council of Portland (1874)
Maher v Town Council of Portland tested the constitutional guarantees for denominational schools set out in section 93 of the British North America Act of 1867. The issue was whether the Common Schools Act of 1871 infringed the guarantee of denominational schools set out in section 93(1).
Dow v Black (1875)
Dow v Black was one of the first major cases examining in detail the division of powers between the federal Parliament and the provincial Legislatures, set out in s. 91 and s. 92 of the British North America Act.
The Caraquet Riots (1876)
The Caraquet Riots of 1875 stemmed from the Common Schools Act of 1871. The francophone Catholic clergy was hostile to the Act, which forbade religious instruction in New Brunswick schools. The local priest in Caraquet, Joseph Pelletier, and local representative to the Legislative Assembly, 31-year-old Théotime Blanchard, were responsible for the Catholic protest stratagem to withhold tax monies and to disregard local elections to the school board. In the British North American system of government, education and the school boards were purely a local concern, with the province supplementing locally determined budgets. Certain Protestants in Caraquet held to the system as directed by the Crown and went ahead with the scheme of the Act. The Catholic stratagem of electoral noncompliance, which was perceived as dereliction, was singularly unsuccessful and led directly to the riots, and subsequent violent death in the same incident of one Catholic protester and one police constable. In the aftermath, the riot was adjudicated as R v Mailloux et al., while the murder of the constable was reported as R v Chiasson.
The convictions were appealed to the New Brunswick Court of Appeal in early 1876. The verdicts were upheld in the matter of the riot, but later vacated due to the lapse of time between incident and conviction. The conviction of Chiasson was vacated on a number of grounds.
Russell v R (1882)
Russell v R is a landmark Privy Council decision regarding the interpretation of the British North America Act 1867, and was one of the first cases explaining the nature of the peace, order and good government power in Canadian federalism. Specifically, it dealt with the powers of Parliament to delegate authority, in this case under the Canada Temperance Act, to, in this instance, municipal councils.
R v Robertson (1882)