If you’re summoned for jury duty in Florida keep your thoughts on your civic responsibilities and leave your personal electronics at home.

Many of you have cell phones, computers, and other electronic devices. Even though you have not yet been selected as a juror, there are some strict rules that you must follow about using your cell phones, electronic devices and computers. You must not use any device to search the Internet or to find out anything related to any cases in the courthouse.
Between now and when you have been discharged from jury duty by the judge, you

. . . [more]

Most Slaw readers will have read from one source or another that a New York trial court has ruled that a child still four years of age can be sued for negligence. The child defendant was riding a bike with training wheels when she and her friend ran into an old woman, knocking her down; the fall broke the woman’s hip. (The woman died three months later of unrelated causes.) The story in the New York Times provides the basic facts.

The judgment, Menach v Breitman, is available as a photocopied image in PDF. I’ve OCR’d that judgment . . . [more]

Last week, the Working Group 7 of The Sedona Conference – “Sedona Canada” – issued a public comment draft of “The Sedona Canada Commentary on Proportionality in Electronic Disclosure & Discovery.”

As explained by Justice Colin Campbell in his Foreword, proportionality is not a new concept in civil procedure, but has become a critical practical imperative and conceptual ideal given the impact of electronically stored information on litigation. He says, “Civil litigation simply becomes cost-prohibitive and burdensome without early and careful attention to identifying key sources of potentially relevant data and ensuring that only potentially relevant and unique data is . . . [more]

Last week I covered the litigation from the Adscam controversy relating to journalistic privilege in Globe and Mail v. Canada. This week, the Federal Court released Canada (Attorney General) v. Chrétien relating to the Gomery Inquiry (pdf), the Royal Commission charged under the Inquiries Act with investigating the scandal.

From the outset, the inquiry was burdened with charges of bias and conflicts of interest. Former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien then sought judicial review of the inquiry of the Commission’s findings, which quashed the findings. The current appeal was an attempt to overturn this decision to quash . . . [more]

The Supreme Court of Canada released the highly-anticipated decision in Globe and Mail v. Canada on Friday. The court considered three appeals emerging from the Sponsorship Scandal or “AdScam,” where a misappropriation of public funds in Quebec under Paul Martin’s Liberal Party of Canada, which ultimately led to his party’s downfall. The scandal is still cited as one of the main reasons why the Federal Liberals continue to suffer in the polls.

The Globe & Mail has made their factum and the respondent’s factum available on their website, along with responses from various individuals in the legal and publishing . . . [more]

privilege for legal advice from accountants?

There has been a lot of press over the Privacy Commissioner’s decision that the Google Street View collection of information from unprotected wifi signals breached PIPEDA. See the press release, and the decision. See examples of press reports by the CBC and CTV. The CTV report says that Spanish regulators announced they were filing a lawsuit against Google for the incident, seeking millions in fines.

I know nothing more about this than I read in the press – but I think we need to put Google’s actions in perspective here. Yes, it should not have collected that . . . [more]

This past week the Alberta Queen’s Bench released Pridgen v. University of Calgary, 2010 ABQB 644, a decision which quashed the academic discipline of students who had criticized a university professor.The applicants were participants in a Facebook group that used potential defamatory statements, which prompted in a complaint by the professor that resulted in non-academic discipline for misconduct.

The university did not allow the students to appeal the decision to the Board of Governors Discipline Appeal Committee, thereby preventing them from exhausting all internal remedies before seeking judicial review. . . . [more]

In the course of this profession you occasionally come across little oddities that catch your attention and amuse you. When it happens to me I often share them here at Slaw. The most recent oddity to catch our attention is an interestingly named case from Nova Scotia in 1919, The King v. Fifty Gallons Rum, (1919) 53 NSR 131, 31 CCC 10. Hitherto I had been unaware that an inanimate object could be named in an criminal case. In this instance it seems that Fifty Gallons of Rum, was caught at the wrong place, at the wrong . . . [more]

With a hat-tip to my young colleague, Michael Ladanyi:

While the decision is not yet posted online, according to the Federal Court website, Amazon.com’s appeal of the Commissioner’s Decision denying Amazon.com a patent for its 1-click purchasing was granted today. The status update giving notice that the appeal was granted can be seen here. The application describes purchasing items over the Internet using a single-action by transmitting a client identifier associated with information about a buyer.

Here is the full text of the status update posted online today:

Reasons for Judgment and Judgment dated 14-OCT-2010 rendered by The

. . . [more]

Following the landmark ruling on September 28, 2010, by Ontario’s Superior Court Justice Susan Himel, which struck down various sections of the Criminal Code of Canada dealing with prostitution because of safety and security concerns to sex trade workers, and effectively decriminalized prostitution in Ontario, another case in British Columbia would like to follow suit.

The Ontario Court of Appeal recently released its decision in Jaffer v. York University, 2010 ONCA 654, which reaffirms the proposition that the Superior Court of Justice does have jurisdiction over academic disputes that are grounded in contract or tort.

University administrators will find the ruling important in assessing their liability to civil claims, and students bringing civil suits against universities will find it useful in constructing proper pleadings.

Background

The plaintiff, Ashif Jaffer, had Trisomy 21, also known as Down’s Syndrome, and was accepted to York’s Glendon College in September 2006. Although attempts were made to determine . . . [more]