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 May 1 – 8:

1. R. v. Duncan 2013 ONCJ 160
   

   5. 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.

2. Maclean v. The Barking Frog 2013 HRTO 630
   

   3. This is disputed by the respondent, who states that there was a flat cover charge of $5 for all customers that night. The respondent, however, does not dispute that its doorman may have offered the applicant and his friends a differential price in order to “jump the line”. In my view, this is a distinction without a difference. Whether offered as the regular cover charge or offered only as a special charge to “jump the line”, the dispute here focuses on the charging of a lower price for women in order to enter the bar…

3. The Law Society of Upper Canada v. Chiarelli 2013 ONSC 1428 
   

   1. The Respondent regularly appears before the Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board. He is not a lawyer and he is not a licensed paralegal. He says that he is actually in the property management business. He says that when he appears before the Board he is the “personal representative” of the landlord. He therefore says that he does not need to be a licensed paralegal or a lawyer.

   2. The Applicant Law Society of Upper Canada says that what the Respondent is doing is actually providing legal services without a licence. The Law Society asks for a permanent injunction restraining the Applicant from appearing in front of the Board or doing any other work that a legal professional should do.

The most-consulted French-language decision was Mardik c. Nova Bus, division de Groupe Volvo Canada inc. 2013 QCCS 1152