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 this last week:

1. Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board 2013 HRTO 440
   

   [1] This is an Application made under s. 53(5) of the Ontario Human Rights Code, R.S.O. 1990, c. H.19, as amended (the “Code”), dated May 18, 2009. The underlying complaint was filed with the Ontario Human Rights Commission (the “Commission”) on November 24, 2004.
   [2] In a prior decision, 2012 HRTO 350 (CanLII), 2012 HRTO 350 (“decision on liability”), I found that the respondent discriminated against the applicant because of disability contrary to ss. 5 and 9 of the Code, by failing to accommodate the applicant’s disability-related needs from April 2003 and then by terminating her employment on July 9, 2004.

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; Church of the Ecumenical Redemption International (CERI); Moorish Law; and other labels – there is no closed list. In the absence of a better moniker, I have collectively labelled them as Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument litigants [“OPCA litigants”], to functionally define them collectively for what they literally are. These persons employ a collection of techniques and arguments promoted and sold by ‘gurus’ (as hereafter defined) to disrupt court operations and to attempt to frustrate the legal rights of governments, corporations, and individuals.

3. R. v. Vu 2013 SCC 60
   

   [1] In this case, the digital and Internet age meets the law of search and seizure. The encounter raises a novel issue: does the traditional legal framework require some updating in order to protect the unique privacy interests that are at stake in computer searches? The traditional legal framework holds that once police obtain a warrant to search a place for certain things, they can look for those things anywhere in the place where they might reasonably be; the police do not require specific, prior authorization to search in receptacles such as cupboards and filing cabinets. The question before us is whether this framework is appropriate for computer searches; in short, should our law of search and seizure treat a computer as if it were a filing cabinet or a cupboard?

The most-consulted French-language decision was Syndicat canadien des communications, de l’énergie et du papier, section locale 30 c. Pâtes & Papier Irving, Ltée 2013 CSC 34

[1] La vie privée et la sécurité sont des intérêts liés au milieu de travail à la fois très importants et très délicats. Ils entrent aussi parfois en conflit, tout particulièrement lorsque le lieu de travail est dangereux.

[2] Dans un milieu de travail syndiqué, ces questions sont habituellement traitées dans le cadre de la négociation collective. Toutefois, si un employeur choisit de mettre en place des mesures de sécurité sans les négocier au préalable et si ces mesures emportent des sanctions disciplinaires pour les employés, il doit s’assurer qu’elles relèvent de la clause de la convention collective portant sur les droits de la direction.

[3] La question juridique au cœur du présent litige est celle de l’interprétation de la clause de la convention collective prévoyant les droits de la direction. C’est une question relevant du droit du travail qui a fait l’objet de précédents clairs et d’un historique de reconnaissance respectueuse que les négociations collectives peuvent traiter de manière responsable des enjeux de sécurité en milieux de travail — ainsi que de ceux relatifs à la sécurité du public.