The B.C. appellate court has allowed an investor’s appeal, bumping up the damage award it received against its former broker.

In the original case, a married couple and their company each sued their former broker and his firm, Midland Walwyn Capital Inc. claiming damages for losses in their investment accounts, alleging breach of contract, negligence, and breach of fiduciary duty. The trial judge dismissed the claims regarding the individual accounts, but it found that the broker and the firm had been negligent in failing to meet industry standards concerning the corporate account.

The court found them jointly and severally liable to the corporation for damages in the amount of $65,500. All three plaintiffs filed a notice of appeal, but only the corporate appellant proceeded to argue the appeal. The broker and the firm also cross-appealed the trial judge’s decision.

The court ruled that the appeal is allowed, and it recalculated the amount of damages the plaintiff should receive. “I would allow the appeal and adjust the award by adding $168,500, for a total of $234,000, for the losses in the September 1996 to the September 1997 period, calculated on the actual performance of the investments rather than an assumed performance,” noted Justice Ian Donald, who wrote the decision on behalf of the court. The cross appeal is dismissed.

“To be effective, the judge’s approach to assessment required an analysis of the market performance of the hypothetical portfolio,” he wrote. “Having checked the tables in [the corporate account’s] factum against the evidence, and accepting, as I do, the conservative nature of the few assumptions necessary to bring this aspect of the case to a conclusion, I am satisfied that the difference between the performance of the judge’s hypothetical account and that of the actual account between September 1996 and September 1997 was $234,000. This represents an increase of $168,500 over the $65,500 determined by the judge.”