Industrial Scaffolding Inc. asked the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador to stay enforcement of a $477,198.28 labour arbitration award while it pursued judicial review. The underlying arbitration arose from the company's use of non union workers on residential construction despite its voluntary recognition and collective agreement relationship with the Carpenters union. Industrial Scaffolding challenged aspects of the arbitration and argued that paying the award before judicial review could put the business itself at risk.
The court accepted that there was a serious issue to be tried and focused closely on the evidence of irreparable harm. The company had significant receivables tied up, a substantial CRA debt being serviced through monthly payments and deficient cash flow. Evidence also indicated that selling capital assets to fund the award could impair operations and trigger financing problems. On that record, the court found the risk of business failure was realistic rather than speculative.
The balance of convenience also favoured preserving the status quo. The judicial review hearing was already scheduled, while there was no comparable evidence that union members would suffer equivalent harm from waiting for enforcement. The court therefore stayed the award pending judicial review and ordered costs of the stay application in the cause.
The case is useful because financial harm usually has to be more than the ordinary consequence of paying money to qualify as irreparable. Here, the evidence connected immediate enforcement to a credible risk that the business could fail or lose the ability to operate. That was enough to justify delaying enforcement without deciding whether Industrial Scaffolding will ultimately succeed on the judicial review itself.