The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed (with costs) the appeal in Morrow v. Zhang (33311). The appellate decision concluded this about Alberta’s Minor Injury Regulation at para. 149:

The MIR, when considered with the entire scheme of insurance reforms, does not infringe section 7 or 15 of the Charter. While the legislation does make a distinction on the basis of disability, it is not discriminatory. The legislation, as a whole, responds to the needs and circumstances of those suffering minor soft issue injuries.

Background reading:

• Alberta Courts Uphold Minor Injury Cap in Morrow v. Zhang theCourt.ca August 24,

The Divisional Court of Ontario is being asked to decide whether a religious organization has the right to fire an employee who does not conform to its moral code. Christian Horizons runs a home for people with disabilities. Public funds are provided since this is a valuable service for the community. The organization has its employees sign an agreement when they start work that they will conform with specified moral rules, including that sex must happen only within a marriage between a man and a woman.

One employee signed the agreement in 1995 but about 2000 decided she was lesbian . . . [more]

Hidden by the furore over Facebook’s privacy policy changes this week, an interesting little story about Facebook relationships between judges and lawyers popped up this week.

Florida’s Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee came out with a guideline on whether judges can “friend” lawyers who are appearing in cases before them. According to the Committee, it isn’t permissible since it creates the impression that the “friended” lawyer is in a position to influence the judge.

Of course, most people’s facebook friend list is comprised mostly of people who you’ve barely spoken with recently, never mind having any influence over. Luckily, judges can . . . [more]

Richard Colvin, the Canadian diplomat who has testified before a Parliamentary committee concerning his warnings to the government about the torture of Afghan detainees captured by the Canadian military and turned over to Afghan authorities, has released a sixteen-page letter in which he addresses the claims of the government concerning his testimony.

The document is available for downloading here. The publicly available document is hosted on Scribd and is marked with a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.

You can also read it online at the Globe and Mail website, where an article outlines the letter’s . . . [more]

Is it rogue or is it ambush marketing? With hockey helmet toques, a front tooth blackout marker, Canada-emblazoned hoodies, and Eh? t-shirts, it calls out to the inner hoser in all of us. The latest news is that manifesto-driven, zen-making sportswear company Lululemon Athletica is getting cheeky in the pre-Olympic season. Lululemon launched a special edition clothing line this week: the “Cool Sporting Event That Takes Place in British Columbia Between 2009 & 2011 Edition.” The Hudson’s Bay Company is the official clothing sponsor of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. This is one way to get the attention of Olympic . . . [more]

There is still some sensitivity around legal process outsourcing (LPO); however as time passes, we are seeing a growing number of law firms and corporate law departments embracing LPO. Simmons & Simmons is the latest law firm to outsource some of its legal work.

Based on published sources, the list of corporations and law firms offshoring legal work and the type of work they are outsourcing includes:

Corporations
Accenture – support, contracts
American Express
Andrew Corp
Cadence Design Systems – document review
Dell – procurement and sales contracts
DuPont – document review
General Electric – contracts
General Mills – patent . . . [more]

The Court of Appeal for England and Wales has ruled against Lucasfilm in its breach of copyright suit against Andrew Ainsworth, the British designer who produced the Stormtrooper costume for the Star Wars films. (Lucasfilm Limited et al. v. Andrew Ainsworth [2009] EWCA Civ 1328)

Ainsworth had been selling a few Stormtrooper helmets both in the U.S. and in Britain. Lucasfilm claimed that the models for the helmet were copyright works as “sculptures” within the meaning of s.4 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. After a long review of the legislative history and the caselaw, . . . [more]

[A post for Ontario lawyers only.]

We have received various questions and comments on the enhanced coverage for counterfeit certified cheques and bank drafts that we are providing under the 2010 LAWPRO insurance program and policy. To respond to those questions and comments, we’ve prepared an extensive list of FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) that help explain this new enhanced coverage>, and also to provide some tips and guidance on how to make the coverage requirements work in your law practice.

These FAQs should help answer your questions as some recent media coverage about this new enhanced fraud coverage was not . . . [more]

From today’s news of import (:-P)

Noisy British lover admits anti-social sex

LONDON (AFP) – A British woman admitted Tuesday breaching an anti-social behaviour order by having noisy sex.

Caroline Cartwright was served with a civil order over marathon romps with husband Steve, described in court as “unnatural” and “like they are both in considerable pain.”

…

And on Tuesday Cartwright pleaded guilty at Newcastle Crown Court to violating the order three times in April.

We must not, of course, conclude from this that the Caroline and Steve had sex only 3 times in April.

For those who must know, . . . [more]

Thanks to a tweet by @richards1000 I was reminded about Cornell University Library’s digitization project, which has resulted in over 2000 law books’ becoming freely available online at the Internet Archive. Slawyer Michael Lines spent some time at Cornell in 2008 and reported on the digitization project then current. As with most texts in the Internet Archive, you are able to read these materials online in an interactive version of the actual books, see or download them in plain text or PDF, or obtain them in, among others, a format suitable for Kindle or EPUB.

I’ve done a fairly . . . [more]

Or perhaps, as I mentioned in a recent article, don’t have anything important on it when crossing borders. And take only an old laptop that you can afford to lose.

This incident has been mentioned in a few places. To paraphrase from a Wired post:

US citizen Lily Sussman took a vacation in Israel.

After pulling her aside for questioning, she was left alone. An announcement was made that Israeli security needed to blow up suspicious passenger luggage. They then put three bullets through her computer. . . . [more]

I have made the following enhancements to my Custom Google Search of Canadian Law Firms available at http://tinyurl.com/canadianlawfirms:

– Renamed the site to “Search Canadian Law Firm Websites, Blogs & Journals”

– added 28 more law firms to include boutiques and regional (smaller) firms for a total of 79 Canadian law firms (and I broadened URLs to include subdomains of law firms [e.g., lawfirm.ca instead of http://lawfirm.ca/*]).

– added 205 Canadian law-related blogs

– added 20 Canadian law journal websites, the BC Courthouse Library and the CBA and CBAO

– added refinement tags to refine search results to publications . . . [more]