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. MacKay v. Starbucks Corporation, 2017 ONCA 350

[46] What is clear, however, based on s. 2 of the Act, is that there is no general common law duty of care, based on proximity principles, owed by an adjacent property owner or tenant in respect of sidewalks that abut that person’s property. The only duty is the statutory duty that is owed by a person who meets the definition of occupier under the Act. As Klar writes in Tort Law at p. 627: “[i]t seems irrefutable that the legislation was intended to be exclusive and comprehensive, in so far as the liability of occupiers is concerned.”

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

2. Taucar v Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, 2017 ONSC 2604

[7] Accordingly, the hearing proceeded, as scheduled, in the absence of the applicant or her counsel. As expected, the respondents made submissions requesting the dismissal of the applications. In its comprehensive reasons, the Tribunal allowed the respondents’ request and dismissed the applications on the basis that the applicant’s refusal to appear at the hearing constituted an abuse of the Tribunal’s process and, further, that the documentary record was insufficient to establish an evidentiary basis for the applicant’s allegations.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

3. Koziarski v Sullivan, 2017 ONSC 2704

[3] In this case, what is raised is the entitlement of a child born out of wedlock to share in an estate. On one level, the policy choice would appear to be obvious – a child born out of wedlock is just as much the child of his or her parents as a child born to married parents. There should be no reason in principle why such a child should be treated differently. However, in this case the court is confronted with a policy choice that appears to have been made by the legislature that is contrary to the intuitive result.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

The most-consulted French-language decision was Giroux c. Centre hospitalier régional de Trois-Rivières, 2012 QCCA 1611

[34] Deux remarques préliminaires s’imposent. D’abord, par son pourvoi, l’appelant ne remet pas en question la conclusion de fait du juge de la Cour supérieure qui a conclu au caractère frivole des motifs invoqués pour l’annulation des priorités opératoires. Seul est en cause le droit des centres hospitaliers d’imposer une sanction administrative contenue dans une directive destinée au fonctionnement du bloc opératoire. En deuxième lieu, les parties s’accordent pour dire que la sanction imposée est de nature administrative. Il ne s’agit pas d’une mesure disciplinaire. J’ajoute que d’aucuns pourraient remettre en cause ici la notion de « sanction ». Il ne s’agit certes pas d’un type de sanction prévu expressément à la LSSSS.

(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.