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. Pohl v Midtal, 2017 ABQB 711

[1] When a parent gives an adult child a joint interest in real property during his or her lifetime, can that gift include an irrevocable right of survivorship that has the effect of preventing the parent from later severing the joint tenancy?

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

2. Saugeen First Nation v Ontario (MNRF), 2017 ONSC 3456

[144] During my detailed review of the dealings among the parties I made numerous findings that various acts or omissions by MNRF were “breaches” of the Crown’s duty to consult. As noted above, Treaties are not to be construed like commercial agreements. Similarly, the conduct of the parties during consultations is not weighed on the basis of contract law. The repeated “breaches” rendered the Crown duty to consult undischarged, and nothing more. Thus when an adequate consultation process is completed, any prior failures in the process will have been cured. The only remedy for past problems in the process lies in a request for funding to cover associated costs for SON, a request that the Crown will be obliged to decide reasonably, given all the circumstances.

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3. R v Stephan, 2017 ABCA 380

[207] Furthermore, the analysis on mens rea makes no reference to the evidence that included the testimony of the family friend who was a nurse, who advised taking the child to a doctor, but the parents ignored her advice, as well as ignored the advice from the naturopathic clinic. Collet Stephan’s testimony also showed she did tests for meningitis and ignored the positive results, choosing instead to conclude it was viral, not bacterial, meningitis when she had no basis for doing so. If the reasoning assumes they were to give the child medical attention, then perhaps this evidence does not show a marked departure from expected conduct, but if they were only to take the child to a doctor, this evidence supports the conclusion that they actively failed to do what a reasonably prudent and ordinary parent would do.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

The most-consulted French-language decision was Asselin c. Desjardins Cabinet de services financiers inc., 2017 QCCA 1673

[15] L’appelant reproche par ailleurs à l’intimée Desjardins Gestion Internationale d’Actifs inc. (DGIA[4]) d’avoir conçu et géré les placements en question d’une façon téméraire et incompétente, qui ne concordait pas avec le risque associé à un produit financier présenté comme sûr, et d’avoir usé de stratégies financières inappropriées, incluant le recours à des fonds liés au papier commercial adossé à des actifs (PCAA). Elle lui reproche aussi de n’avoir pas pris au bénéfice des petits investisseurs les mesures palliatives qui, dans le cadre de la crise financière dénoncée par la lettre du mois de mars 2009, ont été prises en faveur des grands investisseurs détenant de semblables placements.

(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.