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. Iannarella v. Corbett, 2015 ONCA 110

[114] In my view, the improper use of the surveillance evidence gave rise to a form of trial by ambush. This came about because the trial judge did not require the defence to comply with the Rules in relation to the disclosure of the surveillance evidence and the provision of particulars. The trial judge did not exclude the surveillance evidence under rule 30.08, nor did he assess its relevance and require the respondents to comply strictly with the rule in Browne v. Dunn before admitting it. He did not provide the jury with any instructions concerning the permissible use of the surveillance despite the defence’s problematic jury address, nor did he provide the jury with a limiting instruction.

2. Law Society of Upper Canada v. DeMerchant, 2015 ONLSTA 6

[54] The Law Society’s arguments focus on the suggestion that in giving this advice and working on the memo, the Lawyers waded into the commercial tension in the related party transaction. It suggests that Mr. Sukonick, by giving advice on the break fee concept and suggesting that the payments could be characterized in this way for internal purposes, was giving advice to the company in which he might be tempted to prefer the interests of the executives to those of HII. It argues that advice on the tax treatment affected the commercial arrangements between the parties on the related party transactions because the tax treatment of the non-compete payments would have affected the bargaining between the parties on the amounts to be attributed to the different entities. Finally, it argues that in being involved in the drafting of the corrective memorandum, which contained the commercial rationale for the non-compete payments, the Lawyers were involved in the commercial tension on behalf of the obligors.

3. Hopkins v. Kay, 2015 ONCA 112

[11] The issue on appeal is whether the respondent is, or should be, in the discretion of the court, precluded from bringing a common law claim for intrusion upon seclusion in the Superior Court because PHIPA creates an exhaustive code. The Ontario Hospital Association (the “OHA”) intervenes to support the position of the appellants. The Information and Privacy Commissioner (the “Commissioner”) intervenes to support the position of the respondent

The most-consulted French-language decision was Institut Philippe Pinel de Montréal c. A.G. 1994 CanLII 6105 (QC CA)

AUTORISE, pour une période de deux ans à compter de la date de cet arrêt, l’appelant à traiter l’intimé contre son gré, en lui administrant des médicaments antispychotiques et les autres médicaments jugés nécessaires pour atténuer ou combattre les effets secondaires des premiers;

* 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.