[This post is being published simultaneously on our blog]

Each year we compile lists of the most popular cases in the past year. This year is no exception, because one of the comforting things in life is consistency, and the most read cases on CanLII.org give you that this year. Five of the cases on the list were on last year’s list too, and the top two cases are unchanged from last year; four of the cases on this year’s list were on the top 10 list in 2014.

As ever we invite discussion of the cases . . . [more]

Defamation is an injury of sorts. Granted, it’s not a bodily harm exactly of the type we see in motor vehicle collisions, or the other types of intangible harms we see in non-pecuniary damages. Instead, defamation deals with a harm to a reputation.

The issue has come to a head in Ontario, with one of the most prominent players in the personal injury industry claiming foul against the Ontario Trial Lawyers Association (OTLA) over a CPD they conducted on marketing and the Rules of Professional Conduct,

Personal injury law firm Diamond & Diamond has lashed out at organizers of

Written by Cristina Lavecchia, Editor, First Reference

The Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) recently dismissed an application where an employee claimed that her employer threatened her with discipline for exercising her right to refuse unsafe work. Why? The employee did not have the right to delay the employer’s investigation of her work refusal, to wait until her preferred union representative completed a personal matter and attended at the workplace. . . . [more]

We like to believe that our citizenship is integral to our identity. Unless we renounce it, we like to believe it cannot be taken away from us, and that is why we cherish it so much.

Of course that changed in 2014 with Bill C-24, which strengthened the ability of the government to revoke citizenship. Unless it was obtained fraudulently, the government was not able to enact this measure in modern times.

The number of revocations under Bill C-24 have actually increased under the new government, which appeared to criticize it while in opposition and restored citizenship to some . . . [more]

Written by Cristina Lavecchia, paralegal, Editor, First Reference

In a recent decision (Misetich v. Value Village Stores Inc.), the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (the Tribunal) questioned the value of various past case laws that have introduced and applied different tests for family status discrimination, including the Johnstone test. More specifically, the Tribunal disapproved of the existence of distinct “tests” for establishing family status discrimination. . . . [more]

The Supreme Court of Canada, in Royal Bank v Trang, made a privacy decision that will bring a sigh of relief to lenders and creditors.

A judgment creditor asked the sheriff to seize and sell a house to satisfy the judgment. To do that, the sheriff needed to know how much was owed on the mortgage on the house. The mortgage lender didn’t have express consent to provide the information, and said PIPEDA prevented it from giving it. Lower courts agreed.

But the SCC took a more practical approach. The issue was whether there was implied consent to release . . . [more]

Causation in law is a legal fiction. The philosophical underpinnings behind compensation in tort law require some finding of fault, in order to restore the party to their original position. The but-for test used to evaluate these claims is the compromise the law has developed to hold someone accountable for harm suffered by another party.

However, not all forms of compensation in law are administrated by tort law. Injuries suffered by workers as part of the workforce, in particular, have been carved out into a no-fault regime, specifically for the purpose of resolving these issues more efficiently, more effectively, and . . . [more]

The bar has often lamented the lack of “plain language” by the bench, a necessary prerequisite for transparency and open access to the public.

At times, the need for this approach has been criticized as overlooking the needs of the parties. Sometimes, like in the Meads case, this approach is intended to address broader, systemic problems. As I told Canadian Lawyer Magazine a few years ago,

“I think the fact that the judge even made this ruling suggests how big a problem it is,” says Toronto lawyer Omar Ha-Redeye. “This is a hot issue. Family law is in crisis

Donald Trump is estimated to have been involved in over 3,500 lawsuits, unprecedented for any presidential nominee. Most recently, he threatened to sue for defamation over further allegations of groping. Sources, however, indicate he hasn’t actually sued a news outlet in decades, and his threats may have a boomerang effect.

It’s clear that he has other legal disputes on this side of the border as well. Many of them involve the tower in downtown Toronto which bears his name. Only one of them has been reported though, and the Court of Appeal recently weighed in on this action . . . [more]

The prevailing legislative standard in Canada for a duty to report a breach of data security (loss of data, compromise, etc) seems to be that there is a real risk of serious harm as a result of the breach.

Have Canadian courts or regulators given useful guidance on when that happens, and what kind of harm is serious and likely? I am especially interested in court rulings, since the threat of litigation can focus the data holder’s mind as much as or even more than a regulator’s order. (Have privacy regulators cracked down on reporting requirements or other useful follow-up . . . [more]

A university student walks on to campus, wearing a hat that appears to support Donald Trump. Controversy ensues. Oh yeah, the campus was in Canada.

The video of the incident attracted far broader attention, including renewed discussions of the role of “safe spaces” on campus. The debate in Canada followed right after a similar discussion at the University of Chicago, where the Dean of Students told the incoming class of 2020,

We do not support so-called ‘trigger warnings,’ we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual

Judicial notice is an important underpinning of litigation in Canada. The need to prove every trite and accepted fact as evidence would make litigation even more unwieldy than it already is.

Some of the problems emerge when judicial notice is used for facts which may be disputed by the parties. For example, in R. v. Zundel, the Court dealt with hate speech and the denial of the Holocaust. To provide the defendant to litigate the purported evidence against the facts around the Holocaust would only give him a platform to extend his hate speech further. Instead, the trial judge . . . [more]