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. Pascua v Khul-Schachter 2013 CanLII 47860 (ON SC)
   

   1. The plaintiff claims $25,000 for damages for wrongful dismissal and breach of the employment contract.

   4. The plaintiff, Sunshine Pascua, was employed as a full-time nanny and live-in caregiver for the two children of the defendant, Michelle Khul-Schachter, also known as Shashena, pursuant to a written employment contract. The plaintiff’s work included child care, light housekeeping and meal preparations.

2. Martin-Ivie v. Canada (Attorney General) 2013 FC 772
   

   [2] In November of 2005, Ms. Martin-Ivie learned that a high-risk individual had been refused access to Canada at the nearby border crossing in North Portal, Saskatchewan and might be seeking to re-enter the country at Coutts. Concerned that information about him and other dangerous individuals had not been correctly entered into the Canada Border Services Agency [CBSA] computer systems available to the BSOs working on the PIL, Ms. Martin-Ivie and seven of her colleagues exercised their right to refuse to work under section 128 of the Canada Labour Code, RSC 1985, c L-2 [the Code] on November 10, 2005. They claimed that the lack of accurate information about armed and dangerous individuals, lack of armed presence at the border and lack of training put them in danger such that they were entitled to refuse to work under the Code.

3. Ontario v. Criminal Lawyers’ Association of Ontario 2013 SCC 43
   

   [1] This case raises troubling implications that strike to the heart of the constitutional relationship between the judicial and other branches of government in our constitutional democracy.

   [2] It is not disputed that a court may appoint a lawyer as “amicus curiae”, a “friend of the court”, to assist the court in exceptional circumstances; or that the Attorney General is obligated to pay amici curiae when appointed. What is at issue is whether a court’s inherent or implied jurisdiction extends to fixing the rates of compensation for amici curiae.

The most-consulted French-language decision was Images Turbo inc. c. Marquis 2012 QCCS 4386

[1] La demanderesse, les Images Turbo Inc. poursuit les défendeurs en injonction.

[2] La défenderesse Marquis a démissionné de son emploi chez la demanderesse le 27 avril 2012 après huits ans d’emploi[1].

[3] En résumé, la demanderesse allègue que la défenderesse Marquis a contrevenu aux engagements de non-concurrence et de confidentialité signés le 14 janvier 2005[2].