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 March 19 – 26:

1. 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 . . .

2. Keewatin v. Ontario (Natural Resources) 2013 ONCA 158
   

   [5] In 2000, Grassy Narrows applied for judicial review to set aside all licences, permits, management plans, and work schedules that Ontario had granted to Abitibi, alleging that the forestry operations were in violation of the Treaty 3 harvesting clause. The Divisional Court quashed the application for judicial review on the grounds that it lacked the jurisdiction to grant some of the relief sought and there were complex questions of fact and law that required a trial. Grassy Narrows was permitted to bring an action raising the same issues: Keewatin v. Ontario (Minister of Natural Resources) 2003 CanLII 43991 (ON SCDC), (2003), 66 O.R. (3d) 370 (Div. Ct.).

   [6] In January 2005, the plaintiffs launched the action from which these appeals are taken.

3. 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.

The most-consulted French-language decision was Syndicat des infirmières, inhalothérapeutes, infirmières auxiliaires du Coeur du Québec (SIIIACQ) c. Centre hospitalier régional de Trois-Rivières 2012 QCCA 1867

[20] Les parties identifient deux questions litigieuses que je résume ainsi :

• La Cour supérieure a-t-elle erré en ne révisant pas la décision de l’arbitre de rejeter le moyen préliminaire fondé sur la tardiveté de l’avis de congédiement ?

• La Cour supérieure a-t-elle erré en ne révisant pas la décision de l’arbitre de rejeter le grief alors que le droit de l’employeur de requérir, dans un questionnaire pré-embauche, des renseignements personnels liés à l’état de santé d’une personne porte atteinte aux droits fondamentaux du salarié ?