Law360 Canada (April 3, 2024, 12:01 PM EDT) -- Appeal by Saik'uz First Nation and Stellat'en First Nation (Appellants) from trial judge’s dismissal of their common law nuisance claim against Rio Tinto Alcan (RTA) or in declining to make a finding of Aboriginal title. This appeal involved a claim for common law nuisance based on interference with Aboriginal fishing rights. In the 1950s, the province of British Columbia authorized the respondent RTA to build the Kenney Dam (Dam) to facilitate the production of hydropower for the smelting of aluminum. The construction and operation of the Dam had a dramatic impact on and infringed the Appellants’ Aboriginal right to fish in the Nechako River. As a result, they brought a claim in nuisance against RTA. In that claim, the Appellants asserted an Aboriginal right to fish in the Nechako River watershed. Their lawsuit against RTA was based on the common law tort of nuisance and grounded in their assertions of an Aboriginal right to fish in the Nechako River watershed and Aboriginal title to the lands and beds of the lakes or rivers in which they traditionally fished. The RTA submitted a defence of statutory authority. Although the trial judge found that the Appellants had Aboriginal rights to fish in the Nechako River, he nevertheless advanced an alternative claim in public nuisance and decided the case on the basis of the legal framework that applied to private nuisance. The Appellants challenged the trial judge's conclusions that the defence of statutory authority applied, and if it did apply, the Appellants argued that the trial judged erred in failing to find that the defence was constitutionally inapplicable to the Appellants. They also alleged he erred by declining to make a finding of Aboriginal title and by granting limited declaratory relief....