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. United States v Meng, 2020 BCSC 785

[82] Ms. Meng’s approach to the double criminality analysis would seriously limit Canada’s ability to fulfill its international obligations in the extradition context for fraud and other economic crimes. The offence of fraud has a vast potential scope. It may encompass a very wide range of conduct, a large expanse of time, and acts, people, and consequences in multiple places or jurisdictions. Experience shows that many fraudsters benefit in particular from international dealings through which they can obscure their identity and the location of their fraudulent gains. For the double criminality principle to be applied in the manner Ms. Meng suggests would give fraud an artificially narrow scope in the extradition context. It would entirely eliminate, in many cases, consideration of the reason for the alleged false statements, and of how the false statements caused the victim(s) loss or risk of loss. By that approach, Wilson, described above, would, it seems, require a different result.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

2. Armstrong v. Royal Victoria Hospital, 2019 ONCA 963 (CanLII)

[87] In any case where standard of care is at issue, the court must determine what is reasonably required to be done (or avoided) by the defendant in order to meet the standard of care: Berger v. Willowdale A.M.C. (1983), 1983 CanLII 1820 (ON CA), 41 O.R. (2d) 89 (C.A.), at p. 95, citing Blyth v. The Company of Proprietors of the Birmingham Waterworks (1856), 156 E.R. 1047, at p. 1049. In a medical malpractice case, the court must determine what a reasonable physician would have done (or not done) in order to meet the standard of care: Kennedy v. Jackiewicz, 2004 CarswellOnt 4914 (Ont. C.A.), at para. 20, leave to appeal refused: 2005 CarswellOnt 1669 (S.C.C.). The degree of foreseeable risk affects the determination of the standard of care: McArdle Estate v. Cox, 2003 ABCA 106, 327 A.R. 129, at para. 27.

[88] Here, the question is whether the trial judge, in his determination and application of the standard of care, held Dr. Ward to a higher standard than what could reasonably be expected of a prudent and reasonable general surgeon performing a colectomy in the circumstances of this case.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

3. R. v. Ahmad, 2020 SCC 11 (CanLII)

[1] As state actors, police must respect the rights and freedoms of all Canadians and be accountable to the public they serve and protect. At the same time, police require various investigative techniques to enforce the criminal law. While giving wide latitude to police to investigate crime in the public interest, the law also imposes constraints on certain police methods.

[2] For that reason, this Court in R. v. Mack, 1988 CanLII 24 (SCC), [1988] 2 S.C.R. 903, sanctioned, but narrowly confined, the power of police to step beyond their normal investigative role and tempt people into committing criminal offences. Where they do so without reasonable suspicion, or where they go further and induce the commission of a criminal offence, they commit entrapment. Without a requirement of reasonable suspicion, the police could target individuals at random, thereby invading people’s privacy, exposing them to temptation and generating crimes that would not otherwise have occurred. Such conduct threatens the rule of law, undermines society’s sense of decency, justice and fair play, and amounts to an abuse of the legal process of such significance that, where it is shown to have occurred, a stay of proceedings is required.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

The most-consulted French-language decision was Toussaint c. Allard, 2019 QCCS 3709 (CanLII)

[48] En l’espèce, la mise en demeure a été envoyée dans un délai raisonnable aux défendeurs, un acte de vente conforme à la promesse a été signé par le demandeur[24], les titres de la propriété sont offerts[25] et l’action a été intentée dans un délai raisonnable.

[49] Dans ces circonstances, le Tribunal n’a aucune hésitation à conclure que toutes les conditions d’exercice de l’action en passation de titre sont rencontrées avec succès par monsieur Toussaint.

(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.