Property on Trial, edited by Eric Tucker, James Muir, and Bruce Ziff, brings the “cases in context” style of legal historical scholarship to Canadian property law to great effect. In fifteen essays by historians, legal historians, lawyers, and a geographer, the anthology explores the sometimes-surprising background of major (as well as a few minor) cases, revealing new information about the cases, the litigants, and the legal system itself.

Essays in the “cases in context” genre offer the greatest insights (and the greatest pleasures for a reader) when they reveal something new about their subject, whether by exploring the hidden background of the case at issue, providing a forgotten context, or simply reframing the case within a coherent narrative. In this regard, the essays in the collection are largely stellar. Particularly rewarding are Patricia Farnese’s essay on Monsanto Canada Inc v Schmeiser, which offers several revelations about farmer Percy Schmeiser and his well-connected family, as well as the questionable tactics of Monsanto in aggressively defending its agricultural patents; Eric Reiter’s essay on Drysdale v Dugas, which reveals that Dugas was a judge of the Montreal Court of Sessions who used his knowledge of the law to his advantage, acquiring property adjacent to Drysdale’s stables with the intent of launching a nuisance suit; the essay on Murdoch v Murdoch by Vanessa Gruben, Angela Cameron, and Angela Chaisson, which provides a compelling narrative of the case and connects it to the movement for marital property reform; and Philip Girard’s essay on Galbraith v Madawaska Club, which offers the surprising revelation that the real covenant at issue, which limited ownership of land to graduates of the University of Toronto, had been implemented for reasons of public policy—specifically, the desire to prevent members of the Madawaska Club from obtaining windfall profits from resale of the properties. By providing new insights into the underlying cases, the essays in this anthology demonstrate why the “cases in context” genre has been so popular in recent years.

At the same time, the essays occasionally suffer from the pitfalls common to the genre, particularly the extended restatement of well-known legal arguments or the decisions of the court. For example, while the first two-thirds of Frank Luce and Karen Schucher’s essay on Bell v Mackay offers an insightful exploration of the origins of the Ontario Human Rights Code and the conflict between newer administrative law regimes and the common law courts, the final third largely echoes earlier arguments and decisions of the Ontario Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada. Not all of the essays, however, suffer in this regard. In its final pages, Ian Kyer’s essay on Regina v Stewart reveals an unexpected party, the Church of Scientology, hovering just outside the litigation. By focusing on the behind-the-scenes maneuverings of the Church of Scientology and the Province of Ontario, rather than on the minutiae of the legal rulings, Kyer’s essay reveals details about the case that could not be gleaned from simply reading the reported decisions. The essay thus demonstrates that the genre has much to contribute to legal historical scholarship.

While the anthology is excellent as a whole, readers seeking a comprehensive history of Canadian property law may be disappointed by the anthology’s limited scope. Expressly excluded are cases concerning Aboriginal title, which the editors believed “could not be effectively addressed in the space possible in this sort of collection,” as well as “the major questions of property law from the nineteenth century and earlier” (p. 6). Also largely absent are cases arising out of Quebec civil law, with the sole exception being Eric Reiter’s aforementioned chapter. Though the desire to keep the volume to a manageable length is praiseworthy, the result is a work whose title suggests greater depth than its contents provide.

Overall, however, Property on Trial does an admirable job of exploring the background of major property law cases and doctrines, particularly those doctrines (such as the development of contemporary intellectual property theories) that are not well covered in existing historical literature. It is a welcome contribution to Canadian legal history scholarship.