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. Meads v. Meads, 2012 ABQB 571

[1] This Court has developed a new awareness and understanding of a category of vexatious litigant. As we shall see, while there is often a lack of homogeneity, and some individuals or groups have no name or special identity, they (by their own admission or by descriptions given by others) often fall into the following descriptions: Detaxers; Freemen or Freemen-on-the-Land; Sovereign Men or Sovereign Citizens; Church of the Ecumenical Redemption International (CERI); Moorish Law; and other labels – there is no closed list. In the absence of a better moniker, I have collectively labelled them as Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument litigants [“OPCA litigants”], to functionally define them collectively for what they literally are. These persons employ a collection of techniques and arguments promoted and sold by ‘gurus’ (as hereafter defined) to disrupt court operations and to attempt to frustrate the legal rights of governments, corporations, and individuals.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

2. Kania v 1618278 Ontario Inc. c.o.b. as Heart and Crown Irish Pubs, 2015 ONSC 7042

[40] I find that the defendant breached its duty of care to keep the patio reasonably safe for the plaintiff. I accept Mr. Williamson’s opinion that a change of elevation in a walking surface of a single step is dangerous. I also accept his evidence that there were no visible cues to the danger of the single step in question such as a warning sign, colour contrasting grip tape, or handrails and that the existence of the step was not discernible because of the continuous colour and orientation of the wood decking on both levels of the patio. The existing lighting did not make the change in elevation discernible.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

3. R. v. Li and Xiao, 2015 BCPC 365

[79] When the Carusis returned to the kill site the second time, Mr. Xiao and the other man were preparing to load the whole moose into the box of the truck.

[80] This is very unusual because most hunters gut and field dress their kill as soon as possible to avoid the meat spoiling. Also, to load a whole moose into the back of this Ford Raptor, without field dressing, it would likely be a difficult task considering the size and weight of the moose. This suggests to me either inexperience on the part of the hunters, someone in a rush, or both.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

The most-consulted French-language decision was Québec (Procureure générale) c. D’Amico, 2015 QCCA 2138

[1] La Procureure générale du Québec porte en appel, sur permission, un jugement du 1er décembre 2015 de la Cour supérieure, district de Montréal (l’honorable Michel A. Pinsonnault). Le juge de première instance était saisi d’une demande en injonction interlocutoire provisoire pour une durée renouvelable de 10 jours visant à ordonner que les dispositions des articles 26 à 32 de la Loi concernant les soins de fin de vie, R.L.R.Q., c. S-32.0001 portant sur l’aide médicale à mourir ne puissent s’appliquer au moment de l’entrée en vigueur de cette loi le 10 décembre 2015.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

* 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.