Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on practice, research, writing and technology.

Technology

Prevent That Annoying Autocorrect of (C) to ©
Steve Toews

Want to stop Microsoft Word from autocorrecting (c) into ©? …

Research & Writing

‘Garden Path’ Sentences
Neil Guthrie

My sister sent me a fun article about these. They are sentences that you think are going in one direction but which suddenly seem to go off on a weird tangent that doesn’t quite make sense. … . . . [more]

One of the first instances of recorded law we are aware of is the Code of Hammurabi. It was literally etched in stone. If you read about it, what strikes you is how little has changed about how we record laws in roughly 3700 years. We learned to put laws on parchment. Then paper. Then typesetting, and photocopying. Eventually, we began to digitize images of the pieces of paper on which the law was written. But all of these were just different ways of recording the etchings in the stone so people could use them.

While significant progress has . . . [more]

The central premise behind civil laws is a private wrong done to another.

According to Graham McBain in International Law Research, the earliest example of what would become the common law probably can be attributed to the Anglo-Saxon concept of “wounding,” which constituted a tariff system of fines from the 6th c. CE, based on the nature of the injury.

This personal wrong evolved into a form of trespass to the person, which we now know today as a civil tort of battery. Justice Cartwright drew on an 1891 Queen’s Bench decision in an early Canadian case in Cook . . . [more]

Every week we present the summary of a decision handed down by a Québec court provided to us by SOQUIJ and considered to be of interest to our readers throughout Canada. SOQUIJ is attached to the Québec Department of Justice and collects, analyzes, enriches, and disseminates legal information in Québec.

PÉNAL (DROIT) : Une opération d’infiltration visant un avocat et son client nécessite une autorisation judiciaire sous la forme d’un mandat général délivré selon les exigences prévues à l’article 487.01 C.Cr.

Intitulé : R. c. Bebawi, 2019 QCCS 5902
Juridiction : Cour supérieure (C.S.), Montréal
Décision de : Juge Guy . . . [more]

Much has been written over the past weeks about the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Uber v. Heller, one of the most anticipated decisions of the year – at least in arbitration and employment law circles.

I won’t go into a detailed analysis of the decision in the face of much more learned comments. But I do want to suggest that the Court provides some practical lessons for those drafting and those seeking to engage (or avoid) arbitration agreements.

First, and most important, don’t try to use arbitration to frustrate legitimate claims.

Sadly this has become a common . . . [more]

Written by Daniel Standing LL.B., Editor, First Reference Inc.

The employer’s duty to accommodate an employee was the central issue in the recent Alberta labour arbitration case, First Canada ULC and IUOE, Local 955 (Bartlett), Re, 2020 CarswellAlta 1154. The case pitted a bus driver’s claim of physical disability and request for a reduced workload against the employer’s relentless drive for cost efficiency and safety. The arbitrator’s acceptance of the employee’s grievance and human rights complaint is an instructive account of how employers should approach and deal with employees’ claims for accommodation. . . . [more]

It’s been a long time since I did an analysis of the constitutional give-and-take between the courts and the legislature when it comes to Charter decisions, so I’m not going to opine on Justice Minister David Lametti’s remarkable musings last month that the government might legislate a solution to court backlogs caused by enforcement of the Jordan decision during the pandemic.

As the defence lawyer states in the linked article, the Supreme Court’s ruling already allows for flexibility around “illness or extraordinary circumstances,” and COVID-19 certainly qualifies as both. There’s no need to legislate a solution to Jordan backlogs . . . [more]

Recently, the Ontario government has made large strides in introducing CaseLines and the Court Case Search Portal.

CaseLines operates in conjuction with existing conference tools, like Zoom. It is a document sharing platform. CaseLines is not an e-filing system. It is a platform that will require parties to upload documents in advance of a hearing.

At this time, CaseLines is not integrated with the Justice Services Online portal. See the Notice to the Profession here.

How does it work?

Court staff create a file in CaseLines and invite counsel to CaseLines. Parties are then invited to upload documents . . . [more]

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. Pellegrin v. Wheeldon, 2020 BCPC 143 (CanLII)

[105] I now consider punitive damages. As stated in the Huff case, punitive damages are meant to punish the defendant, and set an example for others who might consider undertaking similar conduct. The law in British Columbia is clear: self-help remedies for a trespass or nuisance do not extend to destroying another person’s property, particularly . . . [more]

In an effort to increase assistance for family law litigants who do not have legal representation (self- or unrepresented litigants) and to assuage the concerns of the family law bar, some members of whom object to the introduction of paralegals into family law, at the same time, the Law Society of Ontario has proposed a new licencing framework, one limited to the provision of legal services in family law and one most likely to be taken up by existing paralegals. The LSO has invited comment on the entire proposal (see Family Legal Services Provider Licence Consultation Paper (“FLSPL Paper”); however, . . . [more]

[This post was a collaboration written by Anna Sallah and Julie Macfarlane.]

COVID-19 has driven up anxieties and everyday challenges for everyone, but for the self-represented litigant, it has raised new and especially difficult issues. Being a self-represented litigant on a normal day is no small feat: it involves tackling issues ranging from searching for and identifying legal resources, to applying arcane and complex rules and procedures, all while navigating unfamiliar territory.

Moving from dealing with the regular uncertainties of being an SRL to being an SRL during COVID-19 is like moving from the frying pan, to the fire.

As . . . [more]