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. R v. Rajan, 2020 ONSC 2118 (CanLII)

[68] While the tertiary ground reasons for detention are based on a visceral reaction against release–a somewhat abstract notion premised on gauging the reasonable views of the public–the threat of COVID-19 in a jail setting is based on cold, hard scientific reality.

[69] The two must be counterbalanced against each other. The traditional grounds for the imposition of tertiary ground detention expressed in Hall, Mordue and St. Cloud as quoted above continue to militate towards detention. However, the threat of the virus pulls strongly in the other direction, towards release. In the end, the threat, if not the actuality of COVID-19, goes a long way to cancelling out the traditional basis for tertiary ground detention.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

2. Douez v. Facebook, Inc., 2018 BCCA 186 (CanLII)

[1] This is an appeal from an order of the Supreme Court of British Columbia certifying a claim as a class proceeding. The claim arises out of a practice undertaken by Facebook, under which advertisements displayed to a Facebook member’s “friends” could include a statement that the member “liked” the advertised product, service, or organization. Members were not remunerated for the endorsements, and the plaintiff contends that Facebook did not have their consent to publish them. The plaintiff alleges that the practice constituted a tort under s. 3(2) of the Privacy Act, R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 373.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

3. Ontario v. Ontario Association of Midwives, 2020 CanLII 25862 (ON SCDC)

[3] The hearing will be conducted as a video conference. ZOOM technology will be used. Further details about the videoconferencing process will follow in a subsequent endorsement.

[4] Neither counsel nor the court will gown for the hearing. Instead, business attire is required for anyone with a speaking role in the hearing. All parties must ensure that they participate in the videoconference from appropriate surroundings and that they (and the Court) will not be interrupted or disturbed during the hearing.

[5] The following guidelines apply to the filing of electronic materials…

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

The most-consulted French-language decision was Compagnie d’assurances générales Co-Operators c. Coop fédérée, 2019 QCCA 1678 (CanLII)

[17] Le débat en appel, comme celui qui a donné lieu au jugement de première instance[4] (ci-après le « jugement entrepris »), porte sur la nature juridique du virement électronique de fonds et son incidence sur la couverture d’assurance dont bénéficiait Coop Fédérée.

[18] Cette affaire soulève en premier lieu la question de savoir si la Loi sur les lettres de change[5] (ci-après « LLC ») s’applique à un virement électronique de fonds et engage, plus généralement, une réflexion sur la nature juridique du virement électronique de fonds.

(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.