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. Goska J. Nowak Professional Corporation v Robinson, 2016 ABCA 240

[21] This argument mischaracterizes the Agreement. The parties agreed that Dr. Robinson would provide his personal services to a corporate entity, his former professional corporation, RRPC 1. That corporation retained the assets of the practice. Dr. Robinson was to perform his services using office facilities and staff provided by RRPC 1 and he was to be paid by RRPC 1. Obviously, the characteristics of RRPC 1 objectively mattered to Dr. Robinson and it made a difference to him to whom he was to discharge his obligations. For example, it would make a difference to him if his services were assigned to another dentist or to a shell company. Therefore, the Agreement was a personal services contract requiring Dr. Robinson’s consent to an assignment.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

2. Alguire v The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company, 2016 ONSC 5295

[16] To begin, the concept of any paid up value being greater than the face amount of a life insurance policy is quite far-fetched, and arguably nonsensical. By definition, the paid up value of a life insurance policy is the value an owner receives from the insurer upon default or surrender or early termination of the policy before its maturity or the insured’s death. When an insured defaults on his/her obligation to remit payment of a premium, and the policy lapses as a result, the policy may acquire a paid up value such that the face amount of coverage under the policy is reduced in proportion with the number and amount of premiums paid until the date of default. In other words, the paid up value is always a percentage of the face amount of coverage.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

3. R. v. Randle, 2016 BCCA 125

[83] When considering the circumstances in which the confession was elicited in this case, the trial judge placed particular emphasis upon the conduct of the interrogation and the personality of the accused in finding that it was not particularly coercive. The appellant had for some years been involved in criminal activity and was not particularly naïve. He was unemployed but here, as in Johnston, the appellant was not destitute. The appellant did not apparently suffer from a mental illness or disability and was not particularly young or apparently impressionable.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

The most-consulted French-language decision was Canada (Procureur général) c. Syndicat canadien de la fonction publique, section locale 675, 2016 QCCA 163

[24] Ce n’est que plusieurs semaines après l’entrée en vigueur de la [LCD] que les dirigeants de la SRC et des parties intimées réaliseront que celle-ci vise tous les employés de la société d’État, y compris ceux régis par des conventions négociées avant le dépôt des offres finales du gouvernement à l’automne 2008, tous et chacun ayant assumé qu’elle ne s’appliquerait pas à ce dernier groupe. Il aurait cependant suffi d’une lecture du projet de loi, rendu public par son dépôt le 6 février 2009, pour comprendre que tous les employés de la SRC étaient visés par la [LCD]. Ni la SRC ni les parties intimées n’ont tenté d’influer sur les débats parlementaires en demandant d’enlever la SRC de l’annexe 1 du projet de loi. De plus, l’art. 65 de la [LCD] permettait au Gouverneur en conseil, par décret, d’ajouter ou de retrancher le nom de toute société d’État ou de tout organisme public de l’annexe 1 de la [LCD]. Le gouvernement aurait donc pu soustraire la SRC de l’application de la [LCD] si on l’avait convaincu du caractère approprié d’une telle mesure. Toutefois, ni la SRC ni les parties intimées n’ont initié auprès du gouvernement de démarches en ce sens.

(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.