Manitoba court protects loading-dock access pending commercial lease trial

Two Winnipeg businesses won an interlocutory injunction preserving access to their loading docks after Manitoba’s Court of King’s Bench found a meaningful risk that they could be put out of business before their lease dispute reached trial. The court accepted detailed operational evidence of that risk despite the absence of financial records, while leaving the parties’ competing interpretations of the lease unresolved.

In Boyko & Sons Ltd. et al. v. West Panet Properties Ltd., 2026 MBKB 63, delivered May 11, 2026, Justice Bock ordered West Panet to provide the plaintiffs with access in the same manner as before a fence was erected in June 2025. The decision concerns protection pending trial, not a final ruling that West Panet breached the lease or that the businesses have permanent access rights.

A shared access arrangement becomes disputed

Boyko & Sons operates a heavy-truck repair business, while DRB 2023 operates a complementary freight-haulage business. They share premises and loading docks, and trucks need to manoeuvre over part of neighbouring land to reach those docks. Earlier owners had accommodated that use through an easement agreement and then a verbal lease. West Panet acquired the neighbouring property in 2021 for a Princess Auto retail development.

Negotiations produced a written lease signed in March 2022 and effective from January that year. It gave Boyko & Sons defined areas for trailer parking and a non-exclusive licence to use designated common areas. The loading area was included in those common areas. The lease had an initial five-year term and two additional five-year options, but the dispute concerned what access the agreement required West Panet to preserve.

According to the May reasons’ account of the earlier proceedings, the plaintiffs started their action in June 2025 and initially lost their injunction motion. West Panet installed a fence. The Court of Appeal allowed their appeal in November 2025 and ordered the fence relocated to restore access pending a further court order. Justice Bock recorded that access was restored that month and that, after further affidavits and cross-examinations, he heard the interlocutory motion afresh in March 2026.

The court applied the three-part test from RJR-MacDonald: whether there was a serious question to be tried, whether refusing relief would expose the plaintiffs to irreparable harm, and which side the balance of convenience favoured. Each question mattered; an arguable lease claim alone did not establish entitlement to the injunction.

Lease defences remained open

The plaintiffs argued that West Panet’s power to designate common areas did not permit it to eliminate them altogether. They also maintained that DRB 2023 could benefit from the lease through provisions concerning licensees and invitees, as well as a provision addressing changes in voting control within the family business. Their position was that removing access to the loading area breached the agreement.

West Panet disputed both the interpretation and the evidence used to support it. It argued that the plaintiffs improperly relied on the history of negotiations; that the common areas provided access to the leased trailer-parking areas, not the loading docks; and that it had a right, rather than an obligation, to designate common areas. It also said DRB 2023 was not a party to the lease and did not qualify under the change-of-control provision.

Justice Bock expressly recognized those as arguable defences. At this stage, however, a close examination of the merits was neither necessary nor desirable. The plaintiffs had offered a plausible, coherent interpretation and evidence suggesting a breach, enough to satisfy the serious-issue threshold without finally deciding the contract dispute.

Survival evidence outweighed the missing records

The irreparable-harm analysis focused on the businesses’ long-standing interdependence. The haulage operation used the shared docks and generated substantial repair work for Boyko & Sons. Evidence from the businesses’ operators explained why losing loading access threatened the haulage operation and, in turn, the repair business. The court viewed that operational history as supporting a risk to the businesses’ continued existence, rather than merely a claim for lost revenue.

West Panet argued that the plaintiffs’ failure to produce business or financial records left only unsupported assertions. Justice Bock disagreed. The detailed history of the operations and their reliance on the docks persuaded him that the risk was real. In that evidentiary setting, the absence of financial records did not undermine the claimed risk of irreparable harm.

West Panet also relied on what happened during the five months when the fence restricted access. Cross-examination established that the businesses had continued earning revenue and profit, had not laid off employees and had received no customer complaints. They had maintained some limited dock access and temporarily moved other services elsewhere. The developer argued that this experience contradicted their predictions of serious harm.

The judge rejected that inference. Managing five months of disruption did not establish that the businesses could endure an indefinite period, potentially lasting years, before trial. The evidence described increased wage, fuel and other costs, together with operating inefficiencies. Temporary adaptations were therefore not a sufficient answer to the longer-term survival risk.

Parking and development concerns did not outweigh the risk

West Panet identified three kinds of harm an injunction could cause it. First, its lease with Princess Auto contemplated a boundary fence and employee parking in the disputed area. The judge considered temporary relocation feasible, noting that continued dock access affected only part of the planned parking. He also relied on evidence that Princess Auto would not enforce its lease against West Panet in those circumstances; the companies shared ownership.

Second, West Panet raised concerns about reaching a retention pond for snow storage. Justice Bock was not persuaded that alternative access could not be arranged. Even if snow had to be hauled elsewhere, the additional expense was quantifiable, although West Panet had not provided a figure. It had also raised no concern about the plaintiffs’ ability to honour their undertaking as to damages if that became necessary.

Third, West Panet said losing parking spaces could interfere with planned additional retail development. The plaintiffs disputed that calculation. The judge was not persuaded that the concern outweighed their position and reasoned that, even if development were delayed, the trial would clarify whether the existing lease allowed the plans to proceed. He ultimately characterized West Panet’s potential harm as compensable inconvenience rather than the threat to survival facing the plaintiffs, and considered its financial capacity to absorb that inconvenience.

The motion was granted, with one set of costs for the plaintiffs in any event of the cause. The order protected loading-area and dock access pending trial on the terms stated in the reasons. Its significance lies in the concrete evidence supporting temporary protection, not in a general exemption from proving irreparable harm with financial evidence or a final resolution of the lease rights.