Summary

Historically actions around privacy stemmed from concepts of trespass in the common law, and were only recognized as cearly actionable where stipulated by statute. An Ontario Court of Appeal decision today, Jones v. Tsige, changed that by recognizing the tort of invasion of privacy.

The action arose between two employees in a bank who did not know or work with each other. The plaintiff had a common law relationship with the former husband of the defendant, and the defendant acknowledged looking at the plaintiff’s bank information without just cause or reason on multiple occasions.

The plaintiff claimed $70,000 . . . [more]

Pending legislation always makes good fodder for lawyers to comment on in annual predictions articles. The pending anti-spam legislation has resulted in several such comments.

In my predictions article scheduled for publication next week, I comment that:

The Federal anti-spam legislation that was expected to be in force in 2011 is still waiting for regulations to be passed before coming into force. The draft regulations received a lot of criticism, and may be revised prior to the Act coming into force. The Act will be a compliance headache for many organizations, unless the regulations effectively narrow the broad definition of

When the Ontario Superior Court of Justice released the decision in Kusnierz v. The Economical Mutual, the Law Times described it as raising the “ire of plaintiffs’ bar.” Justice Lauwers’ holding directly contradicted the practice in place since Desbiens v. Mordini of allowing motor vehicle accident victims to combine physical and psychological ratings to get a Whole Person Impairment (WPI) rating of 55% or higher to achieve a catastrophic designation under s. 2(1.1)(f) of the Statutory Accidents Benefits Schedule (SABS).

Although some defence counsel were confident that the decision would be upheld on appeal, the Ontario Court of Appeal . . . [more]

The judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada in the Reference re Securities Act 2011 SCC 66 has just been released. The opinion of the Court—a single judgment—finds, in sum, that:

This is not a case of a valid federal scheme that incidentally intrudes on provincial powers. It is not the incidental effects of the scheme that are constitutionally suspect; it is rather the main thrust of the legislation that goes beyond the federal power. . . .

The Securities Act as presently drafted is not valid under the general branch of the federal power to regulate trade and commerce

Subjective top ten lists are great for starting arguments given the improbability of any two people sharing precisely the same worldview. It’s a little tougher to engender heated debate over objectively measured top ten lists, but not impossible. After all, we can still dispute methodology and relevance! I invite Slaw readers to infer meaning and to offer analysis of the results.

So with that, I’m pleased to present for 2011 the top 10 most consulted cases on CanLII.

1. Bruni v. Bruni, 2010 ONSC 6568
2. Indalex Limited (Re), 2011 ONCA 265
3. Dunsmuir v. New Brunswick, 2008 SCC 9
4. Bedford v. Canada,

Here’s the scenario: you’re retained to argue an appeal in the tough U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit; there’s a precedent from that very court that appears clearly to stand in your way; you’re about to prepare your brief for filing. What do you do about the obstinate precedential obstacle?

I’d be willing to be that if you took a poll of appellate advocates, something on the order of 99.4 percent of them would say that, whatever you do, you don’t just ignore it. But that’s exactly what counsel did in Gonzalez-Servin, et al. v. Ford Motor Company, . . . [more]

The Supreme Court of Canada announced today that judgment in the National Securities Regulator Reference will be delivered at 9:45 a.m. EDT on Thursday, December 22, 2011. That’s In the Matter of Section 53 of the Supreme Court Act, R.S.C. 1985, C. S-26 and in the Matter of a Reference by the Governor General in Council concerning the proposed Canadian Securities Act, as set out in Order in Council P.C. 2010-667, dated May 26, 2010 (33718)

We’ll link to it and commentary when it comes down.

Perhaps the word “Judgment” implies that it will be the decision of the Court, . . . [more]

We have discussed Arizona’s controversial new anti-immigration measures several times on Slaw (e.g., here, here and here). Besides appearing to discriminate against various groups, the measures conflict with federal immigration laws and policies. Well, the saga is not yet over. On December 12, 2011, the New York Times announced that the United States Supreme Court agreed to decide whether Arizona may impose such tough anti-immigration measures. The measures include:

• Requiring police officers to determine the immigration status of people they stop for a violation of any law if the officers think the persons are in the country illegally

According to yesterday’s news (see here for an article from the National Post), the government of New Brunswick will be asking the Supreme Court of Canada to look into the status of its language laws as it appeals the decision of its appellate court upholding the decision of a provincial judge who excluded breath-sample evidence of a suspected impaired driver pursuant to s. 24(2) of the Canadian Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms because his language rights had been violated (see R. v. Losier, 2011 NBCA 102 (CanLII)). Indeed, in that case, a police officer only offered the . . . [more]

We read from time to time that Internet defamation is worse than that in other media because of its global reach and persistence over time. Thus the Ontario Court of Appeal in Barrick v Lopehandia 2004 CanLII 12938 issued an injunction against further defamation, in part because of the Internet’s character as “potentially a medium of virtually limitless international defamation” (the Court quoted Matthew Collins, The Law of Defamation and the Internet.) The court (by majority) also increased fivefold the damages awarded at trial, for similar reasons.

Recently the British Columbia Supreme Court granted ex parte injunctions against publication . . . [more]

Can a copyright owner enforce his rights in small claims court? The answer varies depending on which side of the 49th parallel you are on. In Canada, yes! In the U.S., no. Perhaps this is about to change. The U.S. Copyright Office is accepting submissions from the public until 16 January 2012 on remedies for copyright infringement suits in small claims courts. U.S. Congress has asked the Copyright Office to investigate and seek comment on how small copyright claims have been managed in the past and to outline recommendations for changes and alternatives to current procedures.

This is not the . . . [more]

Last April, David Canton noted an Alberta Court of Appeal decision that Leon’s Furniture was justified in collecting licence plate information from people picking up furniture at the store. The AB CA held that the licence plate number was not personal information.

Recently the Supreme Court of Canada refused leave to appeal, a decision that disappointed some privacy authorities.

Are licence plate numbers like Internet Protocol addresses (at least in the eyes of the federal Minister of Justice), in that they point to a machine and not to a person, and a machine that may be used by more . . . [more]