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. Meads v. Meads, 2012 ABQB 571

[1] This Court has developed a new awareness and understanding of a category of vexatious litigant. As we shall see, while there is often a lack of homogeneity, and some individuals or groups have no name or special identity, they (by their own admission or by descriptions given by others) often fall into the following descriptions: Detaxers; Freemen or Freemen-on-the-Land; Sovereign Men or Sovereign Citizens; Church of the Ecumenical Redemption International (CERI); Moorish Law; and other labels – there is no closed list. In the absence of a better moniker, I have collectively labelled them as Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument litigants [“OPCA litigants”], to functionally define them collectively for what they literally are. These persons employ a collection of techniques and arguments promoted and sold by ‘gurus’ (as hereafter defined) to disrupt court operations and to attempt to frustrate the legal rights of governments, corporations, and individuals.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

2. Rothweiler v Payette, 2018 ABQB 399

[47] Other legal maxims published in sources like Black’s Law Dictionary have no relevance or force. For example, Rothweiler quotes a maxim which reads “If the law is inadequate, the maxim serves in its place” (“Regula pro lege, si deficit lex”). This supposed rule is false in Canada. Maxims have no special status in Canada. They are not a supraconstitutional authority. This purported universal rule has never been cited by a reported court judgment in Canada’s history, in either its English or Latin variation. Nor is it cited by any UK decision in the BAILII database. In fact, this maxim is fundamentally illogical. How can a maxim, which is purportedly a pure expression of the law, stand in place of and/or trump “the law”?

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

3. Roy v. Ottawa Capital Area Crime Stoppers, 2018 ONSC 4207

[40] Crime Stoppers cannot rely on the innocent dissemination defence. Although it is factually accurate that Crime Stoppers was unaware of the content posted on its web site until after the complaint was made, Crime Stoppers is not a passive actor like an internet service provider. Crime Stoppers provides the web site for the specific purpose of permitting the police to publish such notices. It is actively involved in identifying suspects and passing useful “tips” to the police.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

The most-consulted French-language decision was Desjardins Sécurité financière, compagnie d’assurance-vie c. Dupuis, 2018 QCCA 1136

[17] En fait, l’action collective des intimés porte sur les fautes contractuelles (l’appelante Desjardins Sécurité Financière, compagnie d’assurance-vie) et extracontractuelles (l’appelante Desjardins Gestion Internationale d’Actifs inc.), relativement à l’offre de placement à capital garanti et intérêt variable Indices Plus Stratégique et Indices Plus Tactique. Parmi les allégations de la demande introductive de l’action collective, quelques-unes reprochent aux appelantes d’avoir conservé des PCAA au sein des IPS et IPT et de continuer de les émettre après août 2007.

(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.