What is the liability of a private contractor who causes the construction of a bridge over the River estuary?

As early as 1815 the question of liability under somewhat similar conditions arose. This occurred in Rex v. Kerrison (1815), 3 M. & S. 526, 16 R.R. 342, and the law was there laid down by Lord Ellenborough as follows: “The undertakers of this navigation have a duty, as it seems to me, arising out of the execution of their own powers under the Act. The Act enables them to cut new channels as occasion should require; and if occasion requires them to cut through a public highway, their duty is to furnish a substitute to the public by means of a bridge. Can we put any other construction upon the. Act but this, that the legislature intended that so far as regarded the making the river navigable, and the cutting new channels for that purpose, neither public nor private rights should stand in their way, but still they should make good to the public in another shape the means of passage over such ways as they were empowered to cut through. What has been done is not a mere incommoding the passage, leaving the public a partial enjoyment of the highway, but it is total deprivation of the means of using it.”

Toms v. The Corporation of the Township of Whitby (1874), 35 U.C.R. 195, in appeal, 37 U.C.R. 100, is the leading case in Ontario bearing on the question and the authority of this case has been referred to with approval in numerous subsequent eases.