Last week the Alberta Court of Appeal ruled on a 7 year long custody battle between gay parents. At issue was the constitutionality of the Alberta Family Law Act and Family Law Relations Act.

At the centre of the drawn out family law litigation was the best interests of a 10 year old girl who spent her first 3 years living with her two dads. When the men split up the biological father and the birth mom objected to the non-bio dad having custody and access to his daughter. In his quest to be declared a legal parent and . . . [more]

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The recent decision of Justice Fuerst in R v. Lippa has the controversy over the standing of paralegals raging again in Ontario. The decision relates to whether judicial officers have the discretion over which legal professionals will sit in the courtroom, and the order of cases which will be called.

In deciding that paralegals can be treated differently within the court system, Justice Fuerst made some interesting comments. She states at para. 18,

…s. 29 of the Law Society Act provides that every person who is licensed to practise law in Ontario as a barrister and solicitor is an

. . . [more]

The revelations by U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden that the National Security Agency has been conducting widespread snooping against pretty much everyone, everywhere, all the time has provoked more than just political and diplomatic fallout.

As can be expected, there are several new lawsuits.

The American non-profit investigative journalism website Pro Publica has created the NSA Surveillance Lawsuit Tracker that lists the “key legal challenges to [U.S.] government surveillance and secrecy” since 2006. The last lawsuit added to the list was filed on July 8th.

For a Canadian take on government whistleblowers, I recommend the work of the NGO FAIR (Federal . . . [more]

The Quebec government has followed up on its plans to legalize doctor-assisted suicide. On June 12, 2013, the government tabled in the National Assembly Bill 52, An Act respecting end-of-life care, which besides its main goal of ensuring that end-of-life patients are provided with care “that is respectful of their dignity and their autonomy,” establishes specific requirements for certain types of medical assistance to die.

Techdirt reports on a recent Florida law intended to ban slot machines and internet cafes – but the law is worded so badly that it is broad enough to ban all computers, tablets and smartphones. It essentially bans any machine or device by which someone can play a game of chance.

The law resulted in about 1000 internet cafes being shut down. One of them has launched a lawsuit and is of course using this bad drafting as part of its case.

As Mike Masnick of Techdirt puts it: “Can we just have lawmakers recognize, once and for all, that . . . [more]

In employment law circles, there is an ongoing debate about how far an employer must go in accommodating a disabled employee to reach the point of “undue hardship”. The Supreme Court has held that an employer is not created to create a position or hire an additional employee to cover for the duties of an employee – the employee must still be able to carry out the essential functions of their job. The debate has since moved to determining what exactly makes an “essential function”.

In a recent decision rendered by James McNamee, Hamilton Health Sciences v Ontario Nurses’ Association, . . . [more]

At the end of my previous post on the application of the E-Commerce Act to land transactions, I mentioned ‘measures that might be useful to ensure that the change does not increase the risk of real estate fraud’. (None of this affects the *registration* of land transfers by electronic means.)

I have recently had drawn to my attention a set of technical specification for electronic signatures in land transactions adopted by OACIQ, the Quebec governing body for real estate brokers (the equivalent of the Real Estate Council in Ontario and some other jurisdictions). These are very detailed, though in principle . . . [more]

Returning to this morning’s decision, in Canadian National Railway Co. v. McKercher LLP, which we gave the headline for in an earlier post, I thought it would be helpful to boil down the judgment, into twelve paragraphs, largely using the court’s own words:

1. The Bright Line rule has been confirmed – the court was not prepared to overrule Neil and Strother. So a law firm cannot accept a retainer to act against a current client on a matter unrelated to the client’s existing files. The fact that the Wallace and CN retainers were legally and . . . [more]

This morning, the Supreme Court of Canada handed down its fourth significant decision on conflicts of interest, the scope of duties of loyalty, and the appropriate division of responsibility between courts and law societies as regulators of professional conduct. It rejected arguments for liberalizing the so-called bright-line rule, but clarified its operation.

The case reopened the “bright-line rule” and the so-called “professional litigant exception, ” formulated by former Justice Ian Binnie in R. v. Neil, and re-affirmed in Strother v. 3464920 Canada Inc. It provides:

… a lawyer may not represent one client whose interests are directly adverse

. . . [more]

Last week Tomee Sojourner, who happens to be a lesbian, filed a complaint of bias against the judge who had presided over a hearing at the Québec Rental Board of a complaint by Ms Sojourner’s landlord. In the words of the news release on the website of Montreal’s Center for Research-Action on Race (Ms Sojourner is Black):

According to her complaint with the Council, the presiding judge, Luce De Palma, repeatedly referred to her as a man (by calling her “il”, “lui” et “monsieur Sojourner”), despite being reminded by Ms. Sojourner and the landlord’s representative that she is a woman.

. . . [more]

On June 26, 2013, private member's Bill 304, An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act (protecting freedom) to repeal Section 13 from the Canadian Human Rights Act to ensure the Act doesn’t infringe on the freedom of expression guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms received royal assent.

According to a story in today’s New York Times, the US Postal Service has a program to photographed the exterior of every single piece of mail they processed — something like 160 billion pieces a year — and provides that data to “law enforcement” upon request. So if you were thinking to evade Prism by brushing up on your letter writing skills . . . return to sender.

The “Mail Isolation Control and Tracking” program simply provides the information available on “covers” without the necessity of recourse to a judge. The article notes that challenges to this practice have . . . [more]