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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. Elmardy v Toronto Police Services Board, 2017 ONSC 2074

[1] On a winter’s evening in Toronto, the Appellant, a black man, was walking on a downtown street when he was stopped by two Toronto Police Service officers. An interaction ensued during which the Respondent Constable Pak punched the Appellant in the face twice, emptied the Appellant’s pockets without his consent and left the Appellant lying on his handcuffed hands in the cold for 20 to 25 minutes.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

2. Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 113 v Toronto Transit Commission, 2017 ONSC 2078

[70] The Policy tests 20% of the Safety Sensitive, Specified Management and Designated Executive workforce in a year. This means the entire population of employees who are subject to random testing will have a chance of being tested within five years. It seems to me that because everyone will have a chance of being tested, over time, any stigma attached to compelling an employee to attend a location where drug and alcohol testing takes place will be quickly eliminated. In addition, presumably the TTC workforce will know that there is a random testing policy and will appreciate that a co-worker attending at a testing location may be there to be randomly tested and for no other reason. Further, random testing applies to senior management of the TTC, including the Chief Executive Officer. This will also reduce any stigma associated with being tested for drugs or alcohol.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

3. R v Yakimchuk, 2017 ABCA 101

[7] The first scenario “placed the hook”. The police staged a judicially authorized break-in of the appellant’s vehicle at a mall parking lot. Officer A’s vehicle was parked next to the appellant’s. The windows of both vehicles were smashed and items taken. The appellant got in a car with Officer A to pursue the “thief” and recover the appellant’s stolen property. After a staged traffic stop, Officer A and the appellant caught up to another undercover officer who said he had caught the thief but the thief escaped by spraying him with pepper spray. The other officer gave the appellant back his stolen property. Officer A and the other officer began to discuss a job they were about to do involving gift card fraud at a department store. Because the other officer was covered in pepper spray, he could no longer carry out the job. They suggested that the appellant go in his place. The appellant agreed and was paid $150.00 later that night when he met up with Officer A. The appellant gave Officer A a small bag of cocaine and told him to call if he needed more cocaine or if he had more work. And so, the appellant was recruited.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

The most-consulted French-language decision was Ostiguy c. Allie, 2017 CSC 22

[1] Ce pourvoi met en relief la tension qui existe parfois entre la prescription acquisitive et la certitude apparente des inscriptions contenues au registre foncier. Comme toute autre tension entre deux ou plusieurs parties du Code civil du QuébecC.c.Q. » ou « Code »), elle doit être résolue en favorisant la solution qui s’accorde le mieux avec l’économie générale du Code, en évitant d’isoler l’un de ses articles au détriment des autres. Il en va de la cohérence du Code, laquelle est sans contredit l’une de ses caractéristiques fondamentales.

(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.

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