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. Alberta (Attorney General) v Malin, 2016 ABCA 396

[13] This rationale for the Judge’s claimed right to appeal cannot withstand scrutiny. It too amounts to a challenge to legislation, the Criminal Rules, and, in turn, the rule-making authority under the Code of the superior courts under s 96 of the Constitution Act, 1867. We are unable to discern any extant lis between the Judge and the authors of the Rules of Court, namely the superior courts. To be clear, the Criminal Rules are made by s 96 judges, not by any joint committee of the judiciary and the executive branch of government. Nor does the Provincial Court as an institution have a lis with the superior courts on any issue. The court levels are part of the judicial hierarchy in the administration of criminal justice. Recognizing such a battleground would hardly add lustre to the Rule of Law, much less serve any useful purpose.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

2. Levac v James, 2016 ONSC 7727

[3] The action arises from an infectious disease outbreak at the Clinic, where Dr. Stephen James, an anesthesiologist, administered epidural injections that were infected by bacteria. The outbreak was discovered in late November 2012, and Toronto Public Health (“TPH”) investigated the outbreak. Ms. Levac alleges that Dr. James, who was personally colonized with the bacteria, is responsible for the outbreak and was negligent because he implemented a substandard infection prevention and control practice (“IPAC Practice”). The other Defendants are the Clinic, the nurses at the Clinic, and Dr. Rothbart, who is the medical director of the Clinic.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

3. Johal v Simmons da Silva LLP, 2016 ONSC 7835

[104] So when the “opportunity” of accepting the plaintiff’s resignation arose, Mr. Clark and/or the remaining management members of the firm, by their inaction decided to “let sleeping dogs lie” and simply accept what they thought was a resignation, after what they thought was a reasonable length of time.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

The most-consulted French-language decision was Association professionnelle des cadres de premier niveau d’Hydro-Québec (APCPNHQ) et Hydro-Québec, 2016 QCTAT 6871

[24] Au Canada, les lois provinciales excluent de la définition d’« employé » ou de « salarié », et donc de la syndicalisation, les personnes qui occupent des fonctions de direction, en des termes qui cependant varient. Sont aussi généralement exclues les personnes qui ont accès à de l’information confidentielle dans le cadre de leur fonction ou qui occupent un poste stratégique dans les relations du travail. Bien que l’analyse de la jurisprudence de chaque province n’ait pas été faite, on peut néanmoins déduire que ces définitions sont parfois moins restrictives que celle du Code et n’excluent pas nécessairement les cadres de premier niveau[20].

(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.