Legal history blog posts from LASA Archivist, Brenda McCafferty…
The 1932 Corona Hotel Fire
Origins of a Jasper Avenue Edmonton Landmark and the Northwestern Utilities Case:
Recently, a Twitter post suggested Edmonton’s light rail transit (LRT) station, Corona, be renamed in honour of Dr. Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical officer, who by all accounts is doing a good job reporting daily to Albertans during the Corona virus pandemic. Many Edmontonians may wonder about the origins of the ‘Corona’ LRT Station opened in 1983, named after the ‘Corona Hotel’, a famous historical landmark once located the ‘Wize Block’ on Jasper Avenue, between 107 & 108 Street. The hotel burnt to the ground in 1932, and was later replaced by the ‘Corona Building’. Today, the exact location marks where First Edmonton Place office tower now stands.
Blame and cause for the Corona Hotel fire became the subject of a frequently cited Alberta court case that was appealed to the Privy Council in 1936. LASA’s archival database reveals the following records in our vault:
Alexander Andrekson fonds
86-00-00, file 9
File consists of a paper entitled “The Corona Hotel fire” by Frank Newson re: Northwestern Utilities Limited vs. London Guarantee and Accident Company Limited (1983, 0.5 cm of text)
Wilbur F. Bowker fonds
44-00-00, file 140
Northwestern Utilities Ltd. vs. London Guarantee and Accident Co. Ltd. (Corona Hotel fire). File consists of the record of proceedings of the Edmonton Corona Hotel fire (1935, 1 folder)
Neil D. Maclean fonds
62-00-00, file 3
In the Privy Council on appeal from the Supreme Court of Alberta Appellate Division, between Northwestern Utilities Limited and London Guarantee and Accident Company Limited and others – fire damages, Corona Hotel (1935, 1 volume including proceedings and exhibit photographs)
The Corona Hotel fire case, chronicled in James Gray’s book ‘Talk to My Lawyer’ (1987), progressed through Alberta’s Appellate court, to the Privy Council in London, England and was known in court reports as Northwestern Utilities Ltd. (Appellants) vs. London Guarantee and Accident Co. Ltd. (Respondents).[1]
The fire destroyed the Corona Hotel in Edmonton on a cold February night in 1932, giving rise to a lawsuit where London Guarantee Co. and ninety other plaintiffs sued Northwestern Utilities, a company which provided gas in Edmonton.[2] The company had an underground gas main in the east-west lane south of the Corona hotel.[3]
University of Alberta Law School Dean Wilbur Bowker provided the following details about the case in The Alberta Law Review (1982):
“The Supreme Court of Alberta case came on for trial before Justice Frank Ford in January 1934 and lasted 14 days. Out of the many issues, all vigorously fought, the plaintiff’s main case was that the gas company was negligent in having laid the pipe without proper support beneath, so that it sagged and broke. The gas company’s answer was that the reason for the subsidence and consequent rupture at the weld was the action of the City in excavating under the pipe while installing a storm sewer a year before the fire. For the plaintiffs, S.B. Woods was the leading counsel along with five others. For the defendant were A.L. Smith, an excellent trial lawyer from Calgary, Milner, Ronald Martland, a young partner of Milner’s’ (and from January, 1958 until retirement in February 1982, a judge of the Supreme Court of Canada), and S.C.S. Kerr. The last named represented the defendant’s insurer.“[4]
Justice Ford dismissed the action on 27 February 1934, (two years following the fire). The appeal from his judgment to the appellate division, was allowed on 6 December 1934. The defendant had the choice of appealing either to the Supreme Court or direct to the Privy Council in London per salte, and chose the latter course.[5]
Milner instructed his London solicitors Charles Russell & Co., to retain Wilfred Greene, K.C. an outstanding member of the English bar at the time. This was Greene’s last case before his appointment as Lord Justice of Appeal. Later he was appointed Master of the Rolls and then a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary.[6]
The Privy Council found the City’s conduct caused the break. The defendant, in conveying a dangerous substance (gas) through its pipeline, was under a duty of care to the plaintiffs, and in the end won the case on grounds different from those originally presented in their case.[7] The Privy Council found against the Gas Company Northwestern Utilities, Limited and they were held accountable for the fire.
The Corona Hotel fire was an important case in the law of negligence and was cited in all the leading texts on torts – Salmond, Winfield, Street, Prosser and Fleming. The late Dean Wright included it in his Cases on Torts, and Lord Wright himself, the author of the judgment, once gave a lecture to Harvard Law School on the case.[8]
Two Edmonton lawyers provided firsthand, eye-witness accounts of the fire as related by Frank Newson:
Frank Newson who was present at the fire, wrote his reminiscences in an essay entitled ‘The Corona Hotel Fire’, intended for publication[9]. He lived five blocks from the Corona Hotel and when news broke, “we were inclined to regard the chasing of the fire engines as an outdoor sport and on learning, probably by radio, that the Corona was on fire, we set out to watch it. It was a bitter Sunday night and we returned home when it appeared the total destruction was inevitable”.[10]
Newson, who was admitted to the Bar in 1937, recalls his articling mentor Edmonton lawyer P.G. Thompson, already at the scene of the fire when he arrived. Thomson, one of Edmonton’s leading criminal lawyers, was viewing the fire from the intersection of 107th Street and the lane south of Jasper, and standing on an iron manhole cover in the middle of the street. Immediately under him were two gas mains that ran under the lane to the south of the hotel.
“The burning gas ignited beneath the manhole cover and there was an explosion that lifted Mr. Thomson and the manhole cover into a short orbit, fortunately without injury to Thompson.“[11]
It is interesting to note a broken pipeline featuring large in this 1930s case, and LASA appreciates the opportunity to shed light on a long forgotten story from Alberta’s legal history.
[1] Gray, James H., ‘Talk to My Lawyer!, Great Stories of Southern Alberta’s Bar & Bench’, (Edmonton: 1987),
- 210-211.
[2] Northwestern Utilities v. London Guarantee Co. [1936] A.C. 108; affg. Sub nom London Guarantee Co. v. Northwestern Utilities [1934] 3 W.W.R. 641 (App. Div.); revg. [1934] 1 W.W.R. 675.
[3] Bowker, Wilbur, ‘Alberta Law Review’, Fifty-five Years at the Alberta Bar: George Hobson Steer, Q.C., v. XX, no. 2 (1982), p. 253.
[4] Bowker (1982), p. 252.
[5] Newson, Frank, Alexander Andrekson fonds (LASA), ‘The Corona Hotel Fire’, re: Northwestern Utilities Limited vs. London Guarantee and Accident Company Limited (1983).
[6] Bowker (1982), p. 252.
[7] Bowker (1982), p. 251.
[8] Lord Wright of Durley, “The Northwestern Utilities Case”, Legal Essays and Addresses, (1939), p. 124.
[9] LASA intends to publish Frank Newson’s article in whole, www.legalarchives.ca in the near future.
[10] Newson, Frank, Alexander Andrekson fonds (LASA), ‘The Corona Hotel Fire’, re: Northwestern Utilities Limited vs. London Guarantee and Accident Company Limited (1983), p. 2.
[11] Newson (1983), pp. 2-3.
