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Samuel Beswick

Dr. Samuel Beswick is an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia Peter A. Allard School of Law. He teaches courses on Torts and Restitution, and is faculty advisor to the school’s British Columbia Law Schools Moot team and to the UBC Law Review. His research interests span the private law of obligations, the temporal scope of judicial changes in the law, and the rule of law in public authority civil liability. He is the editor of two long-form open-access publications: Tort Law: Cases and Commentaries and the Common Law Torts Wiki. He is also an editor of a forthcoming Encyclopedia of Private Law: Torts (Edward Elgar Publishing). Prior to joining Allard Law, Dr. Beswick was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Law School’s Project on the Foundations of Private Law, practised in England in the Solicitor’s Office of HM Revenue & Customs, practised in New Zealand as a litigator at Meredith Connell (the Office of the Crown Solicitor for Auckland), and was a judges' clerk in the High Court of New Zealand.

Aphria Inc. v. Canada Life Assurance Co.: Can the common law be changed with prospective-only effect?

Posted on 12 March 2026

In February 2026, the SCC heard the appeal in Aphria Inc. v. Canada Life Assurance Co. The question presented asks whether commercial landlords who reject a tenant’s lease repudiation are subject to the doctrine of mitigation. On its face the case seems to be of niche interest: significant for commercial property and contract lawyers, of course, but perhaps a dry topic for others. Far from it. As became apparent during oral arguments before the SCC, the appeal in Aphria puts in issue fundamental principles regarding the nature of common law decision-making.