by Daniel Gogek*

When Justice Hackland renders his decision in the now-famous Toronto Mayor Rob Ford ‘conflict’ case, which could be any day now, he is virtually certain to find that the case, contrary to the widely reported views, actually wasn’t a conflict case at all.

Justice Hackland will no doubt explain this in clear detail, and it will be a welcome day, since the public has so far seen little more than misleading and muddled confusion on the matter.

The judgment will almost certainly make this key finding: there was no ‘conflict of interest,’ and therefore the Municipal Conflict . . . [more]

According to Michael Geist today on his blog, the Ontario Public School Board Association is advising school boards in Ontario to prepare to stop using Access Copyright for copyright licensing next year. They are following a legal opinion obtained by the Counsel of Ministers of Education, Copyright, that advises any material copied in Canadian K-12 schools either already has the correct permissions or would fall under fair dealing.

This follows from five Supreme Court of Canada decisions on copyright that came down this summer which gave guidance on determining fair dealing (see Martin Kratz’ coverage in his Ensuring the Balance . . . [more]

I’m sure that many of you noticed a brief flash in the news recently regarding Quebec’s strategic maple syrup reserve and the security issues surrounding said reserve. There were many tongue in cheek references to Maple Syrup’s place in the culture of Quebec and Canada in the media and then the news cycle moved on. Alas, we here at Slaw dig deeper and try to ascertain the legal angle to such events, and it seems that Maple Syrup does indeed occupy a significant place in Canadian culture.

A rudimentary CanLII search reveals that “Maple Syrup” has appeared in court cases . . . [more]

Virtual delight echoed in tweets, posts, and emails in my corner of the web late Wednesday, upon the release of Judge Baer’s opinion in Authors Guild, Inc. v. HathiTrust 11 CV 6351 (S.D.N.Y.). Very shortly after its release, Prof. James Grimmelmann posted the opinion on Scribd.

Briefly, for those unfamiliar, the plaintiffs and defendants had each sought summary judgment in respect of the plaintiffs’ copyright infringement claim. HathiTrust and related university defendants saw near-entire success in their summary judgment motions, failing only on a standing question not consequential to the result. The outcome: Fair use protects the defendants’ participation . . . [more]

UK online newspapers and blogs are buzzing with the proposal outlined by George Osborne, a British Conservative politician and Chancellor of the Exchequer, at the Tory conference yesterday: in exchange for shares given by their employer, newly hired employees would have to give up certain employment rights (see here for The Guardian article). Under this program, employees would be able to waive certain rights with regard to unfair dismissal, redundancy, flexible work time and receive rights of ownership. This employment-ownership scheme would see a large deregulation of the labour market and encourage start-up companies that are concerned with all the . . . [more]

[Broken record on]

Smith v. Moshrefzadeh, 2012 BCSC 1458  is a motor vehicle [accident], personal injury action. Liability was admitted. The issue was how much.

The chart shows what the the plaintiff claimed, the defence position, and the award.

This is what the trial said the law was that determined whether the defendant’s negligence was a cause.

 [59] The primary test to be applied in determining causation is commonly articulated as the “but for” test: a defendant will be fully liable for the harm suffered by a plaintiff, even if other causal factors were at play, so long as

. . . [more]

A recent case from Nova Scotia raises some interesting points around the defence of due diligence in administrative penalty cases for health and safety cases.

This morning’s Globe and Mail features a prominent advertisement for Queen’s University:

The bold statement is hard to miss:

But is it quite true? To get a definitive answer we will need to wait for Kerri Froc‘s book. She is writing the first comprehensive examination of its history, interpretation and potential application with the goal of ensuring the Charter delivers on its promise of a fair, equal and democratic society for all Canadians.

In the interim, we can argue about why cases like M. v. H., 1999 CanLII 686 (SCC), [1999] 2 SCR 3, won by Martha . . . [more]

Supreme Court of Canada Nominee

The Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, announced today the name of the government’s nominee for the Supreme Court of Canada, the Honourable Richard Wagner of the Cour d’appel du Québec.

He’s a 55 year old construction law litigator from Montréal who has been on the Cour supérieure du Québec since 2004, and on the cour d’appel since Febuary 2011.

The nominee has agreed to answer questions from an ad hoc parliamentary committee on Thursday.

For Slaw readers two items on his résumé stand out: he was one of . . . [more]

Slaw carried a post during the summer about jurisprudential solitudes – a gap in knowledge between Quebec’s civil code-based and predominantly French-language legal resources and those in common-law, English-speaking Canada. I find that the barrier tends to run in one direction not both, in that there is more information about the Rest of Canada in Quebec legal circles than vice versa.

In any event, here is a very brief note of three recent decisions of Quebec courts (thanks to a publication by Nicolas Vermeys and Patrick Gingras for Éditions Yvon Blais.) Are there any similar decisions in other Canadian (or . . . [more]

It is a dark time for hockey fans in in North America. The entire season is being threatened by a lockout, imposed by the NHL over their inability to negotiate a new collective agreement with the NHL Players Association (NHLPA). In an effort to stop the lockout, the NHLPA has resorted to some creative legal tactics. Indeed, a few weeks ago, the NHLPA filed for an injunction before the Quebec Labour Relations Board (LRB), arguing that the lockout was a violation of the Quebec Labour Code. Essentially, their argument was that since the NHLPA was not a “certified” union . . . [more]

When I use a word, said a famous literary character, it means exactly what I say it means, nothing more and nothing less.

The same principle applies to statements of the Supreme Court of Canada. The Court made that abundantly clear in the intervener’s failed attempt to get a rehearing of the Court’s decision in R. v. Marshall, [1999] 3 S.C.R. 456, 1999 CanLII 665 in R. v. Marshall, [1999] 3 SCR 533,  1999 CanLII 666.

But, as Marshall shows, if there’s a dispute about what the Court meant, we don’t get to find out the Supreme . . . [more]