Last Stop for High Profile Fracking Suit: Supreme Court

The Alberta Court of Appeal has effectively ruled that one of the nation's most powerful regulators can violate the nation's Charter of Rights and Freedoms by banishing citizens and falsely branding them as a security threats.

That's exactly what happened to oil patch consultant Jessica Ernst. She is now suing the regulator, the Alberta government and Encana Corporation over the alleged contamination of her groundwater by the shallow fracking of coal seams in central Alberta nearly a decade ago.

Fracking Foe Ernst: Alberta Regulator Not Immune to Charter

Lawyers representing oil patch consultant Jessica Ernst have argued in an appeal briefing that Alberta's powerful energy regulator not only owes a duty of care to landowners to protect groundwater, but cannot violate the nation's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Nor is the regulator, which oversaw the development of the oilsands and is now mired in a fracking controversy in the city of Lethbridge, immune to civil action.

Fracking Fighter Jessica Ernst Appeals Court Ruling

Jessica Ernst, whose landmark multi-million dollar lawsuit challenges the regulation of hydraulic fracturing, has filed an appeal against a court ruling that granted that Alberta's Energy Regulator blanket "immunity" from civil action.

In a lengthy 41-page ruling Alberta Chief Justice Neil Wittmann struck the energy regulator from the lawsuit last September but ruled that the claims against Alberta Environment and Encana Corporation could proceed.