This week the Supreme Court of Canada released the decision in Richard v. Time Inc., considering an appeal of prohibited business practices in marketing under Quebec’s Consumer Protection Act. John Gregory summarized the case on Slaw previously here.

The plaintiff received $1,000 in compensatory damages and $15,000 in punitive damages after he received a direct mailing from the defendant that appeared to indicate that he had won a Cash Prize of $833,337.00. The Quebec Court of Appeal reversed the trial judge’s decision in favour of the plaintiff, indicating that the campaign did not explicitly make any promises and . . . [more]

even for civil litigators.

on CanLII

or

http://www.ontariocourts.ca/decisions/2012/2012ONCA0138.htm

until it shows up

Judgments from each of Watt JA (dissenting), Feldman JA, and Blair JA, concurring in the result.

From Blair JA’s reasons

[151] For centuries, judges, lawyers and academics have devoted much thought and debate to the questions of what does or does not constitute hearsay evidence and why and in what circumstances, and what are the principles underlying the admissibility of such evidence. The authors of McWilliams’ Canadian Criminal Evidence observe that “[f]or more than two centuries the common law has woven a web of complex rules and exceptions

. . . [more]

Lacking The Right Stuff, Sylvio Langevin finds his Galaxy Quest over just as he launched his Mission to Mars. With the prospect of A New Hope subject to leave of the Men (and women) in Black, perhaps he should seek Serenity, abandon his quest and make The Voyage Home.

In a Langevin (Re), a decision released last week but published on CanLII just yesterday, the Quebec Superior Court declared Langevin a “quarrelsome litigant” and barred him from bringing any further action without leave.

That order alone, though infrequently issued and a factually and legally . . . [more]

The French constitutional court has held unconstitutional the law passed in January of this year (that’s a fast decision by our standards) that made it illegal to dispute any genocide recognized by law. This kind of rule did not fall into the proper scope of a legal rule. While it was possible for the law to govern the exercise of speech to protect its freedom, this statute went in the opposite direction.

One may note the legislative and judicial materials that appear with the press release to which the above link leads – the law, the supporting material in both . . . [more]

Hallelujah, @Orders-in-Council is tweeting again.

This twitter stream that monitors updates from the Privy Council Office has been intermittent to say the least. It is really important to know what is coming out of the Privy Council Office.

Given the on again off again nature of this particular twitter stream, should we follow it or not?

My instinct says watch for it, but continue with regular monitoring of the OIC database. What do you think? . . . [more]

A recent article in Maclean’s magazine sheds light on the labour situation in Québec and, in particular, the power and leverage that unions enjoy. Full disclosure: I was interviewed for the article and am cited.

In it, Alex Ballingall describes the saga of a labour battle between the enormous CSN and a small chicken restaurant, the “Au Roi du Coq Rôti” (loosley translated as “King of the Roast Chicken”). The work stoppage lasted over three years and hurt both the employer and the employees. As Mr. Ballingall and I explained in the article:

“The laws here in Quebec are different

. . . [more]

“You may have won a million dollars!” … or not, if you don’t happen to have the pre-selected winning number. Various bonus prizes for early birds are also offered. This is a common marketing device, but the Supreme Court of Canada held unanimously in Richard v Time 2012 SCC 8 that it offended the Quebec Consumer Protection Act. Mr. Richard got $1000 in damages for being misled (no misles were involved), plus $15,000 in punitive damages, plus his costs at trial (where he had won) and on appeal (where he had lost), and on a solicitor-client basis in the SCC. . . . [more]

This weekend I participated in PodCamp Toronto, an unconference about social media with hundreds of participants. We had close to 80 sessions over the weekend, and a good number of them talked about or mentioned the newest social media darling, Pinterest. As a long-time blogger, I think of Pinterest as a photo blog with some advanced functionality, but the rest of the world sees it more like an online scrap book or bulletin board. With Pinterest, users “pin” images they have found around the Internet that inspire them to a “pin board”. Individuals can have many different pin . . . [more]

Simon Chester first mentioned the class-action proceeding launched by Lorne Waldman against Thomson Reuters for alleged breaches of copyright for providing original documents created by lawyers without their permission or compensation through their “Litigator” service. The resulting discussion highlighted much of the controversy and tensions around the issue.

Last Tuesday, Justice Perell certified the class action. The plaintiff introduced evidence that at least some of the factums used had been registered with Canadian Intellectual Property Office for copyright, whereas the defendant introduced evidence by Ronald G. Slaght on how these documents are created, using juniors and other precedents, and . . . [more]

Parliamentary websites are too often overlooked as sources for legal research. And that’s a shame because the best ones tend to offer access to an amazingly broad range of material.

The new website of the Australian Parliament, launched last week, is a case in point. There is a ton of stuff there. Most interesting, from my researcher point of view, are the research publications written by the Parliamentary Library, the bill digests (summaries) and the committee pages.

The Library of Congress blog, In Custodia Legis, has a description and evaluation of many of the site’s new features. . . . [more]

The Association of American Publishers announced yesterday that they have successfully taken two websites offline that were freely distributing copyrighted e-books. One of these sites, library.nu, was said to contain more than 400,000 protected digital works.

PaidContent.org has a post up describing how publishers are banding together to fight against book piracy, similar to the battles the RIA has fought over the past decade. The piece also correctly notes how this takedown was conducted without any new legislative powers, such as those in the failed US SOPA bill.

But perhaps the best read of the bunch (at least for . . . [more]

Following the increased occurrence of bullying in schools among Canadian youths aged 11 to 16, and high-profile suicides of young persons due to bullying, several jurisdictions in Canada are in the process of enacting anti-bullying laws. The aim of the laws is...