Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Scope of appellate review confined to questions of law and jurisdiction under s. 72(1) of The Residential Tenancies Act, 2006, and application of the Vavilov correctness standard to the hearing officer’s legal interpretation.
• Proper interpretation and sequencing of s. 62 and s. 70(6) of the Act, including whether a hearing officer must first quantify tenant losses before deciding if an order for compensation is “just and equitable in the circumstances.”
• Failure by the hearing officer to make any findings on the tenant’s losses despite a clear breach of s. 62(b)(ii), amounting to a misapplication of the statutory scheme and an error of law.
• Adequacy of reasons and procedural fairness in the s. 70(6) “just and equitable” analysis, particularly the omission of the tenant’s personal and financial circumstances in favor of focusing almost exclusively on the landlord’s hardship.
• Whether the hearing officer misapprehended or ignored relevant evidence, and the threshold at which evidentiary treatment rises to an error of law in an appeal restricted to legal and jurisdictional issues.
• Remedial options available to the Court when a tribunal commits an error of law in its statutory analysis and reasons, resulting here in quashing the decision and remitting the matter for rehearing rather than substituting a damages award.

Facts of the case

The dispute arises out of a residential tenancy in Saskatchewan between the tenant, Bryan Leachman, and the landlord, Jyot Singh. The relationship is governed by The Residential Tenancies Act, 2006, which establishes the statutory framework for landlords and tenants in the province. Mr. Leachman occupied a rental unit owned by Mr. Singh and was later served with a Notice to Vacate purportedly so that the landlord’s parents could move into the unit, engaging the termination provisions of s. 60 of the Act. After vacating in reliance on that notice, the tenant alleged that the landlord did not in fact use the premises in the way represented. The landlord’s parents only occupied the unit for less than a month, and the unit was not used for the stated purpose for the six-month period contemplated by the Act. This factual pattern squarely raised s. 62(b)(ii), which protects tenants where a landlord terminates a tenancy for an owner-use or family-use purpose and then does not follow through as required.

Statutory framework and policy terms at issue

The dispute does not involve an insurance policy or a private contractual “policy” in the traditional sense; instead, it centres on statutory “policy” choices embodied in The Residential Tenancies Act, 2006. Section 62 permits a tenant to apply for an order under s. 70 where specific misuse-of-notice circumstances exist. Those circumstances include where the rental unit is not used “for the purpose stated in the notice for at least six months” beginning within a reasonable period after the effective date of the notice, which is the situation described in s. 62(b)(ii). Under s. 62, the tenant’s claim is expressly for “compensation for the tenant’s losses” resulting from the landlord’s improper use of a termination notice. Section 70 then sets out the remedial powers of a hearing officer of the Office of Residential Tenancies (ORT). The key clause is s. 70(6), which authorizes the hearing officer, after a hearing, to “make any order [they] consider just and equitable in the circumstances,” including orders for payment of damages or compensation. The Court emphasizes that the wording “in the circumstances” means the decision-maker must consider the totality of the situation, including both parties’ circumstances and the actual losses suffered by the tenant, before deciding what is just and equitable. A further important provision is s. 72(1), which strictly limits appeals from the ORT to the Court of King’s Bench to “a question of law or jurisdiction.” This restriction frames the case as a narrow review of legal interpretation, procedural fairness, and the sufficiency of reasons, rather than a fresh assessment of the evidence. There is no discussion of any separate written lease clauses beyond what is implied by the Act; the “clauses at issue” are the statutory provisions themselves, specifically ss. 60, 62 and 70(6), and the appeal provision in s. 72(1).

The original ORT hearing and decision

The ORT hearing was conducted by teleconference on August 20, 2025. The hearing officer released a written decision on November 25, 2025, cited as 2025 SKORT 3054 (Bryan Leachman v Jyot Singh). In that decision, the hearing officer squarely found that the landlord had breached s. 62(b)(ii) of the Act. The landlord served a Notice to Vacate on the tenant so his parents could occupy the unit, but they did so only briefly—less than one month—before the purpose underlying the termination effectively ceased. This short-lived occupation did not satisfy the statutory requirement that the unit be used for the stated purpose for at least six months after the effective date of the notice. Despite acknowledging this clear breach of s. 62, the hearing officer went on to treat the remedial analysis as a three-step process: (1) whether the parameters of s. 62 were met; (2) whether any order was “just and equitable in the circumstances”; and only then, (3) if such an order was warranted, whether the tenant had proven damages. Having accepted that s. 62 was breached, the hearing officer stopped at his second step. He concluded that, in light of the landlord’s financial hardship and certain unforeseen circumstances, it would not be just and equitable to order compensation. Because of that conclusion, he did not proceed to determine whether the tenant had in fact suffered losses or to quantify any damages, even though the decision contains a section summarizing evidence and citing case law about assessing damages. The net result at the ORT level was that the tenant’s application for compensation under s. 62 was dismissed, notwithstanding the finding of a statutory breach.

The appeal to the Court of King’s Bench

The tenant, Mr. Leachman, appealed the ORT decision to the Court of King’s Bench under s. 72(1) of the Act. On the appeal, the Court’s jurisdiction was confined to questions of law or jurisdiction, not to revisiting or re-weighing factual findings. The Court outlined the applicable standard of review by reference to the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, which mandates a correctness standard on questions of law where there is a statutory right of appeal. In the residential tenancies context, the Court also referenced existing Saskatchewan authorities confirming that findings of fact by ORT hearing officers are generally owed deference and can only be interfered with when a factual error itself amounts to an error of law—for example, where there is no evidence, reliance on irrelevant evidence, disregard or mischaracterization of relevant evidence, or irrational inferences. The tenant advanced three questions of law on appeal: first, whether the hearing officer erred in interpreting s. 62(b)(ii) and its relationship with s. 70(6); second, whether the hearing officer misapprehended or ignored evidence in a way that amounted to an error of law; and third, whether the hearing officer erred in law or breached procedural fairness by failing to consider the tenant’s circumstances in determining what was “just and equitable” under s. 70(6).

Interpretation of s. 62 and s. 70(6): sequencing the analysis

The Court held that the hearing officer’s three-stage framework misinterpreted the Act and reversed the proper order of analysis. Applying the modern principle of statutory interpretation as codified in The Legislation Act and elaborated in recent Supreme Court case law, the judge focused on the text, context, and purpose of ss. 62 and 70. Section 62 explicitly authorizes a tenant’s application for “compensation for the tenant’s losses,” which presupposes that those losses are identified and quantified as part of the adjudicative process. The Court concluded that, properly understood, a s. 62 claim requires the hearing officer to proceed in three steps, but in a different order: (1) determine whether there has been a breach of s. 62; (2) determine what compensation or losses the tenant has suffered as a result of that breach; and only then (3) determine whether it is just and equitable in the circumstances, under s. 70(6), to order compensation in light of the evidence about those losses and both parties’ circumstances. In other words, the “just and equitable” assessment is meant to occur at the end of the analysis, taking into account the totality of the circumstances, including the seriousness of the breach and the magnitude and nature of the tenant’s losses. The hearing officer’s approach—deciding that an order was not just and equitable without first making any findings on the tenant’s actual losses—was therefore inconsistent with the statutory wording and purpose. This misinterpretation of the legislative scheme was found to be an error of law.

Treatment of the evidence and factual findings

On the second ground of appeal, the Court examined whether the hearing officer’s findings of fact involved such disregard or misapprehension of evidence that they rose to the level of an error of law. The tenant argued that the hearing officer ignored his evidence and arguments, particularly regarding the consequences of the termination and the higher rent he had to pay for another unit. The Court acknowledged that the hearing officer’s written reasons devoted more attention to the landlord’s position than to the tenant’s, and that the analysis section emphasized the landlord’s hardship. However, reading the decision as a whole, the Court found that the hearing officer had in fact summarized and restated the evidence and arguments from both sides over several pages. This indicated that the hearing officer was aware of the tenant’s evidence and did not completely disregard it. The imbalance in emphasis was not enough, in the Court’s view, to meet the high threshold for finding that a factual error had become an error of law. Accordingly, on this specific evidentiary point, the Court held there was no reviewable error of law in the hearing officer’s factual findings as such.

Just and equitable analysis and procedural fairness

The third issue turned on whether the hearing officer’s “just and equitable” analysis under s. 70(6) was legally deficient and procedurally unfair because it did not properly consider the tenant’s circumstances. The Court reviewed a line of Saskatchewan decisions emphasizing that ORT hearing officers must provide meaningful reasons demonstrating that they have weighed both sides’ circumstances and that their orders under s. 70(6) truly “accord with justice and equity.” In this case, the hearing officer’s explanation for refusing compensation on “just and equitable” grounds was contained in only two paragraphs, and those paragraphs focused exclusively on the landlord’s financial difficulties and unforeseen problems. The reasons did not mention, analyze, or weigh the tenant’s personal and financial situation, despite uncontroverted evidence that he was on social assistance, supported four children, and had been forced to move into a unit with significantly higher rent as a result of the landlord’s misuse of the notice to vacate. The Court held that a proper s. 70(6) analysis in this context had to consider, at minimum, the length of the tenancy, the tenant’s financial hardship and family responsibilities, the fact that he had to secure more expensive accommodation, the nature and seriousness of the landlord’s breach, and the landlord’s own hardship. By failing either to consider those tenant-side factors or to explain in its reasons how they were weighed, the hearing officer did not conduct the full “totality of the circumstances” analysis required by s. 70(6). This omission amounted both to an error of law in applying the statutory standard and to a breach of procedural fairness, because the tenant could not see from the reasons that his circumstances had been genuinely taken into account.

Outcome and implications

In the result, the Court allowed the appeal brought by the tenant, Bryan Leachman. The ORT’s decision dismissing his compensation claim was quashed, and the matter was remitted to the Office of Residential Tenancies for a full rehearing before a hearing officer who must apply the correct legal framework. At that rehearing, the decision-maker will need to (1) determine whether there is a breach of s. 62; (2) make explicit findings about what losses and compensation the tenant has suffered as a result of the landlord’s misuse of the notice; and (3) conduct a complete s. 70(6) “just and equitable” analysis that expressly weighs the totality of both the tenant’s and landlord’s circumstances. On this appeal, there was no substitution of a damages award by the Court and no fixing of an amount; the judge’s role was strictly supervisory on questions of law. Accordingly, while the successful party is the tenant, Mr. Leachman, there is as yet no determined total for monetary award, costs, or damages in his favour, and the exact amount, if any, will only be established by the ORT on rehearing and therefore cannot be determined from this decision.