I thought Slaw readers might be interested in the actual text of the Florida legislation that, in theory at least, governs the Trayvon Martin case. Title XLVI, Chapter 776.012 governs “Use of force in defense of person”:

A person is justified in using force, except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or herself or another against the other’s imminent use of unlawful force. However, a person is justified in the use of deadly force and does not have a duty to retreat if:

. . . [more]

After almost two years, the National Assembly’s Select Committee on Dying with Dignity tabled its 180-page report in legislature, on March 22, 2012. Titled Dying With Dignity, the report proposes “medical aid to die” and 23 other recommendations.

Back in January, I wrote about a class action that had been filed in New York by former law students claiming they had, in a sense, been duped with regard to post-graduation job prospects (see here). These law students sought over $200 million in damages. Last week, the New York Supreme Court dismissed the action (see here).

Justice Schweitzer wrote that students considering going to law school are “a sophisticated subset of education consumers, capable of sifting through data and weighing alternatives before making a decision regarding their postcollege options.” Moreover, Justice Schweitzer recognized that times were tough; . . . [more]

The Government has recently announced its intention to focus on Bill C-12, the Safeguarding Canadians’ Personal Information Act, its attempt to update PIPEDA in accordance with the statute’s last 5 year review (which incidentally was conducted over 6 years ago). Bill C-12 is a lackluster piece of privacy protection that, in spite of its name, arguably does far more to erode privacy than it does to enhance it. One commentator even dubbed it’s last incarnation the ‘anti-privacy privacy bill‘. As the legislation can be expected to reemerge as early as two weeks hence, a few of its . . . [more]

On November 17, 2011, the federal government introduced Bill C-25, the proposed Pooled Registered Pension Plans Act and making related amendments to other Acts in Parliament as a first step to implement the federal portion of the Pooled Registered Pension Plan (PRPP) framework that will particularly be applicable to small businesses and self-employed persons across Canada.

According to the government, just over 60 percent of Canadians do not have a workplace pension plan. That is a large chunk of workers who are left behind and who could face financial troubles in their retirement years. PRPPs will offer them a new, . . . [more]

One of the satisfying moments that recurred regularly in Star Trek, the Next Generation, was Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s simple executive gesture and the words, “Make it so.” A lot of magic thinking was bound up with that. The United States Supreme Court, however, has recently told attorneys that no such wishful assertion can be as effective, at least in the universe where human laws intersect with the laws of nature.

Two days ago the court released the decision in Mayo Collaborative Services et al. v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc. No. 10–1150. The following is from the headnote:

Although “laws of

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The issue of corporate or government employers asking for social media login ID’s and passwords for job seekers has reared its head again. See this CBC article entitled U.S. job seekers get asked for Facebook passwords. And see this article I wrote a year ago on the subject. This is wrong on so many levels that it is hard to believe anyone would ask for that. 

It is not unusual for employers to look at what job applicants are posting on publicly accessible areas of facebook and twitter. We can debate what influence that should have on the hiring . . . [more]

Earlier this month, I published an article in the Montreal Gazette regarding my departure from private practice (at Norton Rose Canada) and my move to an in-house counsel position and the legal ramifications involved therewith. This post is an abridged (inproved?) version of the full article, which can be found here.

As an employment and labour lawyer, I was very conscious of wanting to do the “right” and legal thing in accepting the offer from my new employer and letting my firm know that I was leaving. Legal issues aside, I loved where I worked and wanted to treat . . . [more]

The recent St. Patrick’s Day publicity, most of which seemed to involve drinking, put me in the frame of mind to notice this development from the home of St. Andrew, where the Scottish government has introduced a bill that would fix mandatory minimum prices for alcohol. The Scottish National Party’s first attempt in the prior parliament was defeated. However, SP Bill 4^* has this time received approval in principle and will proceed on through the legislative process.

There is a basis for concern about the consumption of alcohol in Scotland. The government has set out the argument in favour . . . [more]

Those of you who read the Globe and Mail may have seen in today’s paper the report by Jeff Gray, “Yes, Virginia, this is a rant from the bench,” reporting an edited version of what Justice David Brown had to say from the bench, Thursday, about Ontario’s paper-based document management system. I might not have called it a “rant,” which suggests a lack of control; rather, it’s a scathing and at times sardonic denunciation by a judge fully in control of his facts and his language. It concludes:

[17] If some may consider such criticism un-judicial in

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Here’s a good review of the law on shrink-wrap, click-through and ‘browse-wrap’ contracts . I expect the law of New York is much like the law in at least common law Canada on the topic. The comment is inspired by a recent dispute about Facebook’s ability to enforce its forum-selection clause. The author says that most lawyers would have thought that FB’s sign-up process was ‘bullet-proof’, but the court still made a thorough analysis of it.

The process required the person signing up to click on the terms of service to see them, In other words, the assent to those . . . [more]

GPO Access, the online disseminator of official U.S. government publications, is shutting down permanently tomorrow, March 16th. It has gradually been replaced over the past two years by the new FDsys or Federal Digital System.

FDsys offers authentic, digitally signed PDF documents from dozens of different collections of U.S. Federal Government information (Congressional, Presidential, judicial and federal agency materials)

Some of the new system’s highlights:

• Information is preserved for permanent public access
• Search multiple publications at once
• Conduct complex searches
• Narrow, sort, and filter search results
• Access documents in multiple file formats
• Access metadata in standard XML formats

. . . [more]