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. Dennis v. Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, 2014 ONSC 3882

[64] Where theft by an employee is suspected the outcome of criminal charges is not determinative for employment purposes. An act of theft by an employee may be provable on a civil standard that falls short of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

[65] In the particular circumstances of this case, including the following:

(a) her stated intent throughout to repay the cash before it was due to Wonderland;

(b) conduct of the arrangement with Wonderland not being part of her employment duties at OLG; and

(c) the inadequate and inaccurate internal investigation.

I find that it is totally disproportionate for OLG to view her conduct as support for termination with cause.

2. Matheson v. Lewis, 2014 ONCA 542

[22] The motion judge correctly identified the purpose of the legislation before him but then adopted an interpretation that failed to give effect to that purpose. He considered matters that were not pertinent to the exercise of statutory interpretation: whether the regulatory definitions were out of date, the views of the farming community, and the fact that Mr. Matheson was not at fault in the accident. Consequently, he lost sight of the goal of determining the intent of the legislature.
The statutory and regulatory scheme

[23] The motion judge strayed outside the role of the court, which is to interpret and apply the laws enacted by the legislature. No technique of statutory construction allows a court to decline to apply legislation that in its opinion has not kept pace with changes in society.

3. Security National Insurance Company v. Hodges, 2014 ONSC 3627

[18] The regulation also requires that the brain impairment be “in respect of an accident”, so the starting point is to determine whether the person sustained a brain injury that is a reason for some brain impairment. In this case, if the MRI or CT scan of August 7th had shown no brain injury whatsoever (or a brain injury that was so minor as to not impair consciousness whatsoever) there would be no brain impairment “in respect of an accident”. However, in this case, even Dr. Berry agrees that the injury to Mr. Hodges’ brain was accident related and resulted in at least some brain impairment. There is no requirement that the brain injury by itself would have reduced a GCS score to 9 or less. It is sufficient that the person claiming catastrophic impairment had any brain injury causing any impairment to make that person’s GCS score relevant for the purposes of the definition in the SABS.

[19] We agree with the Director’s Delegate that an inquiry into the patient’s prognosis or the seriousness of the actual brain injury is irrelevant for the purposes of the SABS. The GCS score is a proxy for that determination and it is conclusive with respect to the definition of catastrophic impairment.

The most-consulted French-language decision was Jules Jordan Video inc. c. 144942 Canada inc., 2014 QCCS 3343

[3] Le 15 septembre 2005 marque le début d’une saga judiciaire entre les Requérants et les Intimés, alors que les Requérants déposent devant la Cour de district une réclamation ciblant, entre autres, les Intimés pour : «1. Copyright infringement; 2. Contributory copyright infringement; 3. Violation of unfair business practices – unfair competition; 4. False and misleading advertising; and 5. Violation of right of publicity»[2] (le «Litige d’origine»).

[4] Le Litige d’origine est consolidé aux procédures déposées parallèlement dans l’état de la Californie par John Stagliano, Inc.[3] («Stagliano»), et ce, afin de faciliter l’administration de la preuve, vu la similarité des faits à l’origine des procédures de part et d’autre.

[5] Par contre, seul Stagliano poursuit les Intimés aussi aux termes de la loi américaine «Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act» (la «Loi RICO»)[4], lequel recours sera éventuellement réglé entre les parties concernées.

* 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.