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. Canadian Transit Company v. Windsor (Corporation of the City), 2015 FCA 88

[73] In this case, Canadian Transit – established as a federal corporation under the federal Special Act to pursue federal objects and invoking a federal provision allowing the Federal Court to make declarations concerning federal works and undertakings – has asked the Federal Court what exactly its rights are under the federal Special Act concerning an international bridge, which it says is a federal work or undertaking, federally-regulated, and regulated in substantial part by the federal Special Act. To answer that question, the Federal Court, armed with one of the “laws of Canada,” namely section 52 of the Constitution Act, 1982, will draw in large part upon its interpretation of the federal Special Act and section 91 of the Constitution Act, 1867, another one of the “laws of Canada.” That particular law of Canada sets out federal powers that, in some circumstances defined in the case law, are given paramount or wholly exclusive status under the doctrines of paramountcy and interjurisdictional immunity. The Federal Court, established to administer federal law, and drawing on implied powers it and its predecessors have had for almost a century-and-a-half to determine the constitutional validity, operability and applicability of laws before it, can apply the doctrines of paramountcy and interjurisdictional immunity. This is a federal matter through and through and the Federal Court can determine it fully.
(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

2. Styles v Alberta Investment Management Corporation, 2015 ABQB 621

[129] Accordingly, I find that, in this case, it was the Defendant AIMCo’s unreasonable and arbitrary exercise of its discretionary contractual powers that impeded the Plaintiff in the performance of his obligations under the contract of employment and the LTIP Agreement. AIMCo’s action made it impossible for the Plaintiff Styles to meet the LTIP eligibility condition that “participants [in the LTIP] must be actively employed by AIMCo, without regard to whether the Participant is receiving, or will receive, any compensatory payments or salary in lieu of notice or termination on the date of payout, in order to be eligible to receive any payment.”
(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

3. R v Madood, 2015 ABQB 611

[151] I have no difficulty in finding on all of the evidence that, at least by the time he was shown the video of the stabbing, the Accused probably did not recall having done it. However, there was expert evidence that lack of sleep combined with alcohol consumption could result in memory loss. I am not satisfied on a balance of probabilities that the Accused’s lack of recall of the event was probably due to the fact that he had stabbed the victim while in a rare state of automatism.
(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

The most-consulted French-language decision was Dorval c. Montréal (Ville de), 2015 QCCA 1607

[74] Si l’on s’en tient à la nature – et non à la source – du préjudice subi par les proches de la victime décédée, bien sûr qu’elles ne subissent aucun préjudice de nature corporelle puisque leur propre intégrité physique n’est nullement atteinte. Par contre, si l’on distingue dommage et préjudice, on constate que leurs préjudices – de nature matérielle ou morale – sont la répercussion du décès de leur parente, et donc, elles sont victimes du dommage corporel causé à celle-ci, ou du préjudice corporel causé à celle-ci, selon le nouveau vocable.
(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

* As of January 2014 we measure the total amount of time spent on the pages rather than simply the number of hits; as well, a case once mentioned won’t appear again for three months.