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. Hilson v. 1336365 Alberta Ltd., 2019 ONCA 65

[1] On May 27, 2019, the court released a judgment in this appeal in error. One of the members of the panel that heard the appeal, Justice Huscroft, was not provided with either the draft judgment for review or the final judgment for signature. The judgment was signed, in error, by another justice who was not a member of the panel that heard the appeal.

[2] As a result, the judgment released May 27, 2019 is not a judgment of the court. It is of no force or effect and has been withdrawn.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

2. Acumen Law Corporation v Ojanen, 2019 BCSC 1352

[126] Addressing the first question, the employer’s dealings with the employee after the dismissal, including its conduct in litigating the employee’s claim, may be considered as an element in the court’s consideration of the manner of dismissal; Galea v. Wal-Mart Canada Corp., 2017 ONSC 245 (CanLII) at paras. 254 – 256; OWL (Orphan Wildlife) Rehabilitation Society v. Day, 2018 BCSC 1724 (CanLII) at para. 286.

[127] Addressing the second question, medical evidence is not required to establish that the employee has suffered emotional or health consequences but there must be some evidence of serious and prolonged disruption that transcends ordinary upset or distress; Lau v. Royal Bank of Canada, 2017 BCCA 253 (CanLII) at para. 49.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

3. Austin v Bell Canada., 2019 ONSC 4757

[50] Section 1.29 of the Plan raises a classic comma question. The so-called Pension Index, or measurement of the cost-of-living increase built into the pension, must be calculated every year. As administrator, Bell Canada must apply “the annual percentage increase of the Consumer Price Index, as determined by Statistics Canada, during the [previous year].”

[51] The section contains a list of two items – the annual percentage and the CPI – followed by a modifier “as determined by Statistics Canada”. There is no comma between the items in the list since there are only two of them, but there is a comma immediately preceding the clause that constitutes the modifier. What can one make of this grammatical structure? To put it another way, what is it that Statistics Canada must determine – is it the Consumer Price Index alone, or is it the CPI together with the annual percentage increase in the CPI?

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

The most-consulted French-language decision was Saurette c. Astrazeneca Canada inc., 2019 QCCS 3323

[22] À cette étape, le tribunal exerce un rôle de filtrage. Il doit s’assurer que le demandeur satisfait aux quatre conditions de l’article 575 C.p.c. sans toutefois se prononcer sur le fond du litige. Il privilégie une interprétation et une application larges de ces conditions[11]. Le fardeau du demandeur est peu exigeant : il doit simplement démontrer que sa cause est défendable[12].

(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.