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 the week of January 30 – February 5:

1. Quebec (Attorney General) v. A 2013 SCC 5
   

   [1] The issue raised by the parties in these appeals is whether it is valid to exclude de facto spouses from the patrimonial and support rights granted to married and civil union spouses. Does this exclusion violate the right to equality guaranteed by s. 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (“Charter”)?

2. R. v. Mernagh 2013 ONCA 67
   

   [1] This is the third time in just over a decade that this court has dealt with the issue of medical marihuana. In all three cases, the court has been asked to decide whether Parliament’s attempts to restrict the use of marihuana for medical purposes are constitutional.

3. Sun Indalex Finance, LLC v. United Steelworkers 2013 SCC 6
   

   [85] When a business becomes insolvent, many interests are at risk. Creditors may not be able to recover their debts, investors may lose their investments and employees may lose their jobs. If the business is the sponsor of an employee pension plan, the benefits promised by the plan are not immune from that risk. The circumstances leading to these appeals show how that risk can materialize. Pension plans and creditors find themselves in a zero-sum game with not enough money to go around. At a very general level, this case raises the issue of how the law balances the interests of pension plan beneficiaries with those of other creditors.

The most-consulted French-language decision was Sun Indalex Finance, LLC c. Syndicat des Métallos 2013 CSC 6

[85] L’insolvabilité d’une entreprise met en péril de nombreux intérêts. Le créancier pourrait ne pas recouvrer sont dû, l’investisseur, perdre la somme investie et l’employé, se retrouver sans emploi. Lorsque l’entreprise est le promoteur du régime de retraite de ses employés, les prestations promises par le régime ne sont pas à l’abri du risque couru. Les faits à l’origine des présents pourvois illustrent la concrétisation de ce risque. Régimes de retraite et créanciers se retrouvent dans une situation où, à cause de l’insuffisance de l’actif, les uns sauvent leur mise, les autres non. De manière très générale, le présent pourvoi soulève la question de savoir de quelle manière le droit pondère les intérêts des bénéficiaires d’un régime de retraite et ceux d’autres créanciers.