{"title":"When Should Casinos Owe a Duty of Care Toward Their Patrons?","authors":"E. Chamberlain, Rob Simpson, Garry J. Smith","doi":"10.29173/ALR2542","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"With the release of the Ontario Court of Appeal’s decision in Paton Estate, the possibility was left open for a casino to be found to owe a duty of care to patrons who gamble excessively. This article explores the circumstances under which the Anns/Cooper framework could be applied to find that such a duty exists. Specifically, where the gambler is a member of a casino’s customer loyalty program, thereby imputing knowledge of extreme gambling behaviour on the casino, and where the casino has no reason to believe the patron’s losses are sustainable, a duty of care should be imposed. Liability should follow in cases where the casino knowingly contributed to or deliberately ignored these losses.","PeriodicalId":54047,"journal":{"name":"ALBERTA LAW REVIEW","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2019-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"ALBERTA LAW REVIEW","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.29173/ALR2542","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"LAW","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
With the release of the Ontario Court of Appeal’s decision in Paton Estate, the possibility was left open for a casino to be found to owe a duty of care to patrons who gamble excessively. This article explores the circumstances under which the Anns/Cooper framework could be applied to find that such a duty exists. Specifically, where the gambler is a member of a casino’s customer loyalty program, thereby imputing knowledge of extreme gambling behaviour on the casino, and where the casino has no reason to believe the patron’s losses are sustainable, a duty of care should be imposed. Liability should follow in cases where the casino knowingly contributed to or deliberately ignored these losses.