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. Soczek v Allstate Insurance Co., 2017 ONSC 2262
[2] The Defendant, Allstate Insurance Company of Canada (“Allstate”), brings a motion under Rule 20 of the Rules of Civil Procedure for summary judgment. It seeks to dismiss the Plaintiff’s claim for compensation for property damage incurred in a house fire. The Defendant submits that the claim falls with an exclusion clause in the Plaintiff’s home insurance policy with respect to property damage caused by any intentional or criminal act done by a person insured under the policy.
(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)
2. Carroll v ATCO Electric Ltd, 2017 ABQB 267
[102] Therefore the proper question to ask with regard to measuring damages in cases of without cause dismissal is not What did the plaintiff lose for the notice period as a result of the termination? but rather What did the plaintiff lose by being prevented from working for the whole of the notice period? Even that is not the end of the inquiry. Parties can and do contract out of the common law. Even the approach taken in Paquette and Taggart requires the Court to examine the precise language of any limiting clauses in the program or plan documents to determine if they have the effect of specifically extinguishing common law rights.
(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)
3. Sondhi v Deloitte, 2017 ONSC 2122
[29] I therefore find there is some basis in fact for the core allegation that the document reviewers were not carrying on a document review business for themselves but were being compensated to carry on Deloitte’s document review business. The overall weight of each of the factors just noted (as well as any other relevant factors) will be determined when the case proceeds to the merits and all of the evidence is presented and assessed at trial or on a motion for summary judgment. On this motion for certification, however, it is enough for me to find, as set out above, that there is some basis in fact for PCI No. 1 relating to Deloitte only.
(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)
The most-consulted French-language decision was Churchill Falls (Labrador) Corporation Ltd. c. Hydro-Québec, 2016 QCCA 1229
[134] Il y a dans cet arrêt Bhasin c. Hrynew une démonstration salutaire sur la manière ordonnée pour les tribunaux de déployer les exigences spécifiques de la bonne foi. Comme en common law canadienne, les tribunaux québécois sont appelés à tirer des règles de conduite spécifiques d’une norme générale, ici explicitées par les articles 6, 7 et 1375 C.c.Q. Au stade de la mise en application de cette norme, on peut comme en common law reprocher à la notion de bonne foi son ambiguïté, voire sa malléabilité de nature à engendrer des incohérences entre les jugements des tribunaux. Il y a cependant une observation de plus à ajouter en droit québécois, car depuis le Code civil du Québec, c’est le législateur qui fait de cette notion un principe général de droit, ce qui atténue nécessairement la portée des idées rivales et naguère prioritaires de force obligatoire, d’intangibilité et d’immutabilité du contrat, toutes elles aussi présentes dans le code. Toutefois, si large que soit la conception de l’obligation d’agir de bonne foi mise en évidence par les articles 6, 7 et 1375 C.c.Q., les tribunaux n’ont pas pour mission de construire un système abstrait sur la base d’une notion floue. Comme le rappelait le juge Beetz dans l’arrêt Compagnie Immobilière Viger Ltée c. Lauréat Giguère Inc., « [l]e juge dépend de la fortune des litiges et ne se prononce pas au-delà de ce qui est nécessaire pour les trancher »[179].
(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.
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