Summaries Sunday: Maritime Law Book

Summaries of selected recent cases are provided each week to Slaw by Maritime Law Book. Every Sunday we present a precis of the latest summaries, a fuller version of which can be found on MLB-Slaw Selected Case Summaries at cases.slaw.ca.

This week’s summaries concern:
Criminal Law – Torts – Damages – Master and Servant – Civil Rights

Samaroo v. Canada Revenue Agency et al. 2015 BCCA 116
Criminal Law – Torts
Summary: The plaintiffs brought a civil claim for malicious prosecution after they were acquitted of all tax charges on a 21-count information. The defendants resisted disclosure of certain documents on the authority of R. v. Anderson (SCC 2014), which was said to have established a broad rule imposing a “threshold evidentiary burden” on a party challenging prosecutorial discretion. The British Columbia Supreme Court, in a decision reported at [2014] B.C.T.C. Uned. 1349, rejected the defendants’ arguments. …

Potter v. Legal Aid Services Commission (N.B.) 2015 SCC 10
Crown – Damages – Government Programs – Master and Servant
Summary: The plaintiff, the Executive Director of the New Brunswick Legal Aid Services Commission, sued the Commission, seeking damages for constructive dismissal. The New Brunswick Court of Queen’s Bench, Trial Division, in a decision reported (2011), 384 N.B.R.(2d) 14; 995 A.P.R. 14, dismissed the action, holding that the Executive Director was not constructively dismissed. Rather, it was he who repudiated the employment contract by commencing legal action. The Executive Director appealed. The New …

Loyola High School v. Quebec (Attorney General) 2015 SCC 12
Administrative Law – Civil Rights
Summary: As part of the mandatory core curriculum in schools across Quebec, the Minister of Education, Recreation and Sports required a Program on Ethics and Religious Culture (ERC), which taught about the beliefs and ethics of different world religions from a neutral and objective perspective. A private, Catholic high school sought an exemption. The Minister denied the exemption on the basis that the school’s whole proposed program was to be taught from a Catholic perspective. It …