What is the test for interpreting a written agreement?
Ontario, Canada
The following excerpt is from Thomas Cook Canada Inc. v. Skyservice Airlines Inc., 2011 ONSC 5756 (CanLII):
This passage was adopted in Bell Canada v. The Plan Group (2009), 2009 ONCA 548 (CanLII), 96 OR (3d) 81 (CA), which also stated: …each word in an agreement is not to be “placed under the interpretative microscope in isolation and given a meaning without regard to the entire document and the nature of the relationship created by the agreement.” Courts should not strain to dissect a written agreement into isolated components and then interpret them in a way that – while apparently logical at one level – does not make sense given the overall wording of the document and the relationship of the parties.
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