Background

The pervasiveness of “smart” technology was envisioned in part as far back as 1954 by Harold Osborne, who predicted we would all get a telephone number for life at birth.

When society adopts new technology, social institutions, including the courts, often take time to catch up with it. This was referred to as “cultural lag” by William Ogburn in 1959, who stated,

When material conditions change, changes are occurred in the adaptive culture. But these changes in the adaptive culture do not synchronize exactly with the change in material culture. There is a lag, which may last for

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Employees must participate in their employer’s accommodation process, even where that process has not produced satisfactory results. In the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal case of Perera v. St. Albert Day Care Society, Theresa Perera found this out the hard way when, due to a disabling injury, she refused to perform the work she was assigned and her employer terminated her for insubordination. However, the tribunal found Perera’s injury was a factor in the termination, and therefore the termination was discriminatory. Nonetheless, the insubordination made reinstatement impossible

When the new tort of the intrusion upon seclusion first emerged in 2012 in Jones v. Tsige, many of us wondered how exactly it would be invoked in litigation. Many of us assumed reasonably that this would be an additional head of damages claimed, given the modest amount recognized by the court as reasonable for privacy breaches.

Since that time we have seen this tort employed in several cases with varying success. One of the more intriguing applications is where these small heads of damages can be advanced in the aggregate, namely in through class proceedings.

The ideal scenario . . . [more]

For those readers who don’t follow labour disputes in Quebec, there’s been trouble brewing over the Province’s attempts to reign in municipal pension costs via Bill 3. Because Quebec (and all other provincial) labour laws don’t allow “essential services” unions to strike (not surprisingly, because people could die), police, EMT and firefighter unions have been trying creative ways to get their point across. In the Municipality of Chateaugay (just outside of Montreal), the police force has taken to wearing cowboy outfits (photo credit here):

Not surprisingly, the Municipality protested and filed a grievance. Yesterday, the Quebec Labour Relations Board . . . [more]

In Rodgers v. CEVA, although the employee worked with the employer for less than three years, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice found that the terminated employee should be awarded damages for wrongful dismissal totalling $345,985 representing 14 months' reasonable notice.

I am a big fan of LIIs, CanLII, BAILII, CommonLII, WorldLII and as Yul Brynner channelling the King of Siam would say: et cetera et cetera et cetera. AustLII is on my list of happy sources. There is a non-LII alternative for free access to Australian legal judgments that is worth sharing here as well.

BarNet/JADE was recently complimented in a blog post at the International Association of Law Libraries site. JADE which is an acronym for Judgment and Decisions Enhanced was created as a practitioners resource.

A complimentary sign up for the service is painless and the site . . . [more]

We may not all like Ezra Levant, but we do have a lot to thank him for. As a defendant, I cannot think of a single individual who has developed the jurisprudence of online defamation more than him.

The judgement against him in Vigna v. Levant, and the related costs decision, has for several years now been the best authority on which blog content may be defamatory, and what may not be. However, the modest damages award in this case, and others, have still made online defamation a challenging area for plaintiffs.

Not one to disappoint, Levant was . . . [more]

On the eve of Justice Louis LeBel‘s retirement, the PMO has announced his replacement. A Gaspésienne. A woman. A litigator in private practice at Osler’s Montréal office. Suzanne Côté. In every way a safe appointment, which has already been warmly received, and which raises none of the delicate difficulties of the previous announcement concerning Justice Marc Nadon. The timing is interesting on a day when all eyes are on Pierre Karl Peladeau announcing that he’ll run – and Doug Ford saying he won’t. This story may get lost.

The announcement stated:

« Je suis ravi d’annoncer la nomination

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It is discriminatory for employers to deny parental supplemental employment benefits (top-ups) to birth mothers because they receive pregnancy benefits. So said the Supreme Court of Canada in its unanimous oral decision from the bench on November 12, 2014, agreeing with the British Columbia Teachers' Federation.

Hank Peelle, the owner of Peelle Company Ltd., deluded himself into believing the company’s financial controller, Christine Horner, had a romantic interest in him, despite his 25-year marriage and her long-term relationship. When he thought the time was right, he tried to kiss her and she rebuffed him. Despite some genuine efforts to work it out, Peelle treated Horner differently and the relationship deteriorated. She resigned, making a claim of sexual harassment and reprisal against the employer.

Caveat emptor (buyer beware) or ubberima fides (utmost good faith)? What is a contracting party to do?

The Supreme Court of Canada released a decision this week in Bhasin v. Hrynew which revamps the understanding of how representations made during contractual negotiations are adhered to. The unanimous Court created an “incremental step” in developing a duty of honest performance, which was described as follows:

[93] …

(1) There is a general organizing principle of good faith that underlies many facets of contract law.

(2) In general, the particular implications of the broad principle for particular cases are determined by resorting

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A worker who had accumulated a series of incidents and warnings against conduct unbecoming and poor performance, was dismissed for cause, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice decided in Chopra v Easy Plastic Containers Limited.