When 2 parties do repeat construction work together, they may be tempted to treat all outstanding invoices and deficiencies as one account. Black Dog Organization Inc. v. Island West Coast Developments Ltd., 2026 BCCRT 1478, illustrates why the legal connection between contracts still matters. The contractor couldn't establish an entitlement to additional chain link installation charges, but the developer couldn't retain $1,000 owed under that contract to cover alleged deficiencies in an earlier cedar fence project.
Black Dog had agreed to install chain link fencing around mechanical equipment at a site. Its invoice exceeded the estimate, and it later claimed $2,300 for work it said it performed because landscaping wasn't prepared and it had to return to clean the site. The developer denied approving work beyond the contract and said the return visit had been needed because posts were initially positioned incorrectly. Black Dog didn't provide the site photographs it said existed or statements from the workers who carried out the alleged additional work. The Tribunal couldn't determine that the work fell outside the original scope or that the developer had agreed to pay separately for it. That part of the claim was dismissed.
The developer had also withheld money from the chain link contract because of claimed deficiencies in a separate cedar fence installation dating from the previous year. The cedar invoice had previously been paid, including a lien holdback, before the developer later complained about the gates. The developer invoked equitable setoff. That remedy requires a connection so close between opposing claims that it would be unjust to enforce payment without accounting for the other claim, as discussed in the British Columbia Court of Appeal's Jamieson v. Loureiro decision.
Here, the two fence jobs were distinct contracts. The fact that the parties were the same and work involved fencing didn't make alleged deficiencies in one project inseparable from payment under the other. The Tribunal rejected equitable setoff and ordered release of the $1,000 withheld from the chain link invoice. It expressly didn't decide whether the cedar installation was defective or whether the developer had a separate remedy arising from that work.
The developer was ordered to pay the $1,000 withheld, $76.40 in prejudgment interest and $87.50 in Tribunal fees, totalling $1,163.90 within 14 days, with applicable postjudgment interest. The contractor's remaining claims failed. The decision gives both sides a practical reason to document change orders and to keep separate projects' payment obligations distinct. A genuine defect claim may still exist, but withholding money from another contract needs more than a general allegation that the same contractor performed both jobs.