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. Prowse et al. v. Noroozi, 2021 ONSC 3099 (CanLII)

[52] There is no genuine issue that the Plaintiffs are entitled to claim the foregone interest on the VTB. While not an out of pocket expense per se, it would be a recoverable loss to the Plaintiffs in the form of expectation damages. However, I would infer that the purpose of the negotiated VTB was to offset some of the Plaintiffs’ ongoing expenses with bridge financing and carrying the property during the granted extension for closing. I am not satisfied that it served as a kind of stand-alone gratuitous benefit to the Plaintiffs. Because there is no evidence that the Plaintiffs would have used the interest income for any other purpose other than covering off expenses, I find that it would constitute double recovery for them to receive both the loss of interest income from the VTB on the one hand, and the bridge financing and property maintenance costs on the other hand. This would place them in a better position than had the APS closed as scheduled. This would serve to subvert the purpose of damages for breach of contract.

2. Ontario (Attorney General) v. Clark, 2021 SCC 18 (CanLII)

[41] One of the critical dimensions of a prosecutor’s independence that is protected by immunity is, in fact, independence from the police. The police role is to investigate crime. The Crown prosecutor’s role, on the other hand, is to assess whether a prosecution is in the public interest and, if so, to carry out that prosecution in accordance with the prosecutor’s duties to the administration of justice and the accused. Police and Crown prosecutors are expected to “act according to their distinct roles in the process, investigating allegations of criminal behaviour, and assessing the public interest in prosecuting, respectively” (Regan, at para. 87; see also Smith, at para. 72).

3. Jones v Stooshinoff (Nicholas J. Stooshinoff Law Professional) Corporation, 2021 SKQB 120 (CanLII)

[20] Generally, awards of solicitor-client costs are rare and are only made in exceptional cases. In most cases they are not awarded for the conduct giving rise to the litigation but rather are used to voice the court’s disapprobation of conduct within the litigation itself, where a party’s misconduct might be described as scandalous, outrageous or reprehensible. See Siemens v Bawolin, 2002 SKCA 84 at para 118, 219 Sask R 282; Hope v Gourlay, 2015 SKCA 27 at para 49, 457 Sask R 43; and Tofin v Galbraith, 2019 SKCA 35 at para 56, [2019] 9 WWR 1.

The most-consulted French-language decision was 4240073 Canada inc. c. Boutique WLKN inc., 2021 QCCS 1557 (CanLII)

[11] L’auteur rappelle également qu’il appartient à la partie qui invoque le caractère d’adhésion du contrat de faire une preuve démontrant que le deuxième critère prévu à l’article 1379 C.c.Q. est rempli, soit l’impossibité de négocier les stipulations essentielles du contrat avec l’autre partie, d’y proposer des modifications et le refus de négocier de la partie cocontractante. En l’absence de cette preuve, le contrat ne peut être qualifié d’adhésion, mais plutôt de gré à gré.[8] Enfin, il rappelle que le Tribunal possède un large pouvoir discrétionnaire en matière de qualification des contrats, un exercice qui doit tenir compte des circonstances ayant entouré la conclusion du contrat et les conditions requises par l’article 1379 C.c.Q.[9]

* 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.