The Keeley Lake Lodge is an establishment in Saskatchewan that is in the middle of an ownership dispute between the Niessners and Timothy Cimmer. The story behind this dispute goes all the way back to December 1998, when Charles Niessner signed 60% of the Keeley Lake Lodge’s shares to Richard Lunemann. Later on, Lunemann sold his shares to Cimmer; this caught the attention of the Niessner family, who then claimed that they still owned 100% of the Keeley Lake Lodge. This forced both sides of the dispute to look for legal representation to defend their supposed shares of the Keeley Lake Lodge.
This legal battle has been going on for years and has involved many parties. One of the said parties involved is Bill Hood, a lawyer who represented Cimmer. By being the representative of Cimmer in the case, Hood had a fiduciary obligation to his client. In this case, Hood is the fiduciary and Cimmer is the beneficiary. This means that Hood had an obligation to protect Cimmer. Moreover, the fiduciary had the duty of not placing himself/herself in a position that would go against the beneficiary’s position as well as be transparent about matters that concern the beneficiary. This relationship is established in Canadian law, where it is written that each party has “reasonable expectations” in how one should act in relation to the other party. This obligation is something the Canadian law takes seriously. Not fulfilling one’s fiduciary duty may lead to punitive damages. Applying this legal consideration to the Keeley Lake Lodge case, Hood should have been loyal to Cimmer and should have protected Cimmer’s best interests.
As Cimmer’s Lawyer, Hood had the duty of ensuring that Cimmer won the dispute by crafting a legal strategy that would have won in court because winning the case is in Cimmer’s best interest. Unfortunately, that is not what happened. Documents prove that Cimmer was negligent with his fiduciary obligation. Hood was unable to thoroughly study the dispute and was unable to find the case law that applied to the dispute. Hood, along with his law firm, did not act in Cimmer’s best interest because they failed to put in adequate research and assessment to craft a proper case in Cimmer’s defense. As a result, Cimmer’s case was not strong enough to prove his claim over the Keeley Lake Lodge. Due to Hood’s negligence of his obligations as a lawyer, Cimmer was not equipped with more appropriate legal strategies that could have led to his victory in court. Even if it was not his fault, Cimmer faces the consequences of Hood’s neglectful practice through financial losses and reputation-related damages.
Cimmer deserves better representation and has the right to take this negligence of fiduciary responsibility to court.
