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. Mo-Tires Ltd. v. Canada (National Revenue), 1990 CanLII 3943 (CA CITT)

It seems evident to the Tribunal that the punctuation in both the French and English versions is determinative of the proper construction of subsection 26(5). The placement between the two clauses of the semi-colon and then the comma in the English version, and particularly of the period in the French version, leads to the conclusion that there are two thoughts in the provision and that Parliament clearly intended that retreaded tires be sold at a sale price equal to the retreading charge only in the case where the manufacturer retreads tires owned by another person, for that person or on his or her behalf. In the Tribunal’s view, the use of the words “for or on behalf of any other person” in subsection 26(5) indicates that Parliament intended to restrict the deemed sale price to custom retreads. In that case, the tax applies to the charges made for services to a customer.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

2. Ismail v. Fleming, 2018 ONSC 6615

[20] Given all the realities outlined above, it may be that courts increasingly will have little or no choice but to declare mistrials in situations where it regrettably becomes clear that a trial cannot be completed within its repeatedly confirmed trial duration estimate, especially in cases where the inaccurate and inadequate trial duration estimates cannot reasonably be attributed to developments counsel could not have foreseen.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

3. CBRE Limited v 1223962 Alberta Ltd, 2017 ABPC 114

[10] The issue at trial related to the timing of the “triggering event” in which the commission would be payable. The plaintiff argued that the triggering event for the commission to be payable was either when the conditions were waived (August 4, 2014) or when the sale closed (August 28, 2014). Either date would mean that the exclusion would be 50% of the commission as the dates were well within the 90 day extension period. This would mean that the plaintiff would be entitled to 50% of the commission payable. The defendant argued that the triggering event was when the offer was made (February 19, 2014), which would be within “the first 30 days” and thus the exclusion would be 100% of the commission, meaning the plaintiff would not be entitled to any commission.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

The most-consulted French-language decision was Kosoian c. Société de transport de Montréal, 2017 QCCA 1919

[21] Les règles de la responsabilité extracontractuelle d’un corps public se distinguent de celles du droit administratif. Même si le règlement R-036 avait été annulé par un tribunal, cela n’entraînerait pas nécessairement la responsabilité du corps public. La STM est un corps public et, à ce titre, elle bénéficie, tout comme une municipalité, d’une immunité pour les actes accomplis dans l’exercice de son pouvoir réglementaire[7].

(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.