Wednesday: What’s Hot on CanLII

Each Wednesday we tell you which three English-language cases and which French-language case have been the most viewed on CanLII and we give you a small sense of what the cases are about.

For the week of November 28 to December 4th:

1. R. v. Ibanescu 2013 SCC 31
   

   [1] In R. v. Gibson, 2008 SCC 16 (CanLII), 2008 SCC 16, [2008] 1 S.C.R. 397, a majority of this Court — for the reasons of LeBel and Deschamps JJ. — held that straddle evidence is admissible to rebut the statutory presumption that the blood alcohol level of the accused exceeded the legal limit at the time of driving, although there was disagreement on the issue of the probative value of this evidence. In our view, a statement of a legal principle that is accepted by a majority of the Court constitutes the opinion of the Court with respect to that legal principle. This is so even if some of the members of the Court who endorse that legal principle dissent from the majority’s disposition of the appeal. Therefore, the straddle evidence in this appeal was admissible.

   [2] With respect to the probative value of the evidence, we would adopt the reasons of LeBel J. in Gibson as setting out the appropriate test.

2. Meads v. Meads 2012 ABQB 571
   

   [1] This Court has developed a new awareness and understanding of a category of vexatious litigant. As we shall see, while there is often a lack of homogeneity, and some individuals or groups have no name or special identity, they (by their own admission or by descriptions given by others) often fall into the following descriptions: Detaxers; Freemen or Freemen-on-the-Land; Sovereign Men or Sovereign Citizens . . .

3. R. v. Duncan 2013 ONCJ 160
   

   At heart, Mr. Duncan’s case was unremarkable. A minor alleged Highway Traffic Act offence led to a police-citizen interaction in the parking lot of Mr. Duncan’s apartment building in the wee hours of the morning. A request that Mr. Duncan produce his licence led to an alleged refusal, which led to an attempt to arrest him, which led to a struggle, which was captured on a very poor quality video taken on a mobile phone, at the end of which Mr. Duncan found himself being placed under arrest for allegedly assaulting a police officer. Nothing unusual in all that. The bread and butter of provincial court.

The most-consulted French-language decision was Saguenay (Ville de) c. Mouvement laïque québécois 2013 QCCA 936

[1] Le Tribunal des droits de la personne dans une décision rendue le 9 février 2011 a conclu que les appelants Ville de Saguenay et Jean Tremblay avaient porté atteinte de façon discriminatoire aux droits de l’intimé Alain Simoneau, et ce, contrairement aux articles 3, 4, 10, 11 et 15 de la Charte des droits et libertés de la personne.