Every week we present the summary of a decision handed down by a Québec court provided to us by SOQUIJ and considered to be of interest to our readers throughout Canada. SOQUIJ is attached to the Québec Department of Ju stice and collects, analyzes, enriches, and disseminates legal information in Québec.

ACTION COLLECTIVE (RECOURS COLLECTIF) : Vu les allégations relatives à la violation de la Loi sur la protection du consommateur et de la Loi sur la concurrence, l’absence de préjudice personnel du représentant n’est pas fatale à l’action collective qu’il propose d’intenter en lien avec le Tylenol.

Intitulé . . . [more]

Written by Daniel Standing LL.B., Editor, First Reference Inc.

Pre-contract negotiations, such as prior drafts of agreements, are generally inadmissible as part of “surrounding circumstances” when interpreting a contract, and parties’ subjective intentions are always inadmissible. The Alberta Court of Appeal’s recent decision in Alberta Union of Provincial Employees v Alberta Health Services, 2020 ABCA 4 (CanLII) confirms this principle and states the limits of relying on the parties’ subjective intentions. . . . [more]

Several times each month, we are pleased to republish a recent book review from the Canadian Law Library Review (CLLR). CLLR is the official journal of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL/ACBD), and its reviews cover both practice-oriented and academic publications related to the law.

The Law is (Not) for Kids: A Legal Rights Guide for Canadian Children and Teens. By Ned Lecic & Marvin Zuker. Edmonton, AB: Athabasca University Press, 2019. xiii, 289 p. Includes tables and appendices. ISBN 978-1-77199-237-4 (softcover) $22.99.

Reviewed by Angela Gibson
Bora Laskin Law Library
University of Toronto
In CLLR . . . [more]

The line between bad strategy and a law firm collapse is as thin as a noose. Yet law firms practise bad strategy on a regular basis. Take heed from the lessons of a very public breakdown.

A client recently gave me a copy of Norman Bacal’s book “Breakdown, the Inside Story of the Rise and Fall of Heenan Blaikie”. I was familiar with the story, having lived through it as a horrified observer in 2013. I also met Norm a few years ago when we were both speakers at the same conference in Toronto: him on how a firm implodes, . . . [more]

Each Wednesday we tell you which three English-language cases and which French-language case have been the most viewed* on CanLII and we give you a small sense of what the cases are about.

For this last week:

1. Enviro Hazmat Emergency Response Inc. v Olson, 2018 ABPC 286

[4] Some motorists prefer to deal with the original manufacturer rather than buy aftermarket replacement parts. Part of the appeal with Ford parts, is that Ford guarantees their products. If an aftermarket product fails, the remedy is with the company who made the product, not Ford. Some of these aftermarket companies . . . [more]

We’ve spent a lot of time worrying about the possible effect of deepfake videos on the 2020 election.

While that’s a real concern, we were blown away by the stats in a report from Deeptrace Labs. The most startling statistic was that 96% of fake videos across the internet are of women, mostly celebrities, whose images are used in sexual fantasy deepfakes without their consent.

Deeptrace Labs identified 14,678 deepfake videos across a number of streaming platforms and porn sites, a 100 percent increase over its previous measurement of 7,964 videos in December of 2018.

Sadly, we imagine we’ll see . . . [more]

In March 2020, courts across Canada have been forced to confront issues arising from social distancing measures. The Supreme Court of Canada is now allowing documents to be filed by email, with original paper copies to be filed subsequently at a later date. Further information can be found here.

Similarly, the Ontario Court of Appeal is allowing material to be filed by email. More information can be found here.

In Morris v Onca, 2020 ONSC 1690, Justice Myers dealt with an urgent matter, wherein he allowed material to be filed by email. In this case, the judgment . . . [more]

To many people’s delight, the Law Society of Ontario has stated that it is interpreting section 9 of the Commissioners for Taking Affidavits Act to include virtual commissioning. Reponses to a Slaw post by Pulat Yunusov from last November, in support of the LSO’s then position against virtual commissioning were dismissive of his concerns about virtual commissioning; they also illustrate the eagerness with which people are keen to throw off the bonds of in-person commissioning. (Yunusov stressed the importance of the ritual, as well as the inability of meeting some requirements through technology.)

However, the LSO is not the only . . . [more]

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on practice, research, writing and technology.

Research & Writing

Finding Historical Federal Committee Information
Susannah Tredwell

LegisInfo provides committee information (e.g. the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology) back to the 35th Parliament, 1st Session (1994). …

Practice

Free Products and Resources for Legal Professionals During COVID-19 Crisis

A very quick tip today: Bob Ambrogi has assembled a webpage that lists “products and services offered by companies for free to support the work of . . . [more]

As modern states were developing in Europe during the medieval period, local feudal lords held power of governance over people living their territories. Part of the responsibility of the lord or monarch was to adjudicate disputes. For the sake of simplicity, I will use the term king here, though we should understand that there were multiple titles for people who filled this role depending on the structure of the particular territory: emperor/empress, king/queen, prince/princess, duke/duchess, knight/dame, etc. People would appear before the king at the royal court to present their cases, and the king would issue a decision about what . . . [more]

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award­-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from more than 80 recent Clawbie winners. In this way we hope to promote their work, with their permission, to as wide an audience as possible.

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. Darin Thompson’s CPD podcast 2. First Reference 3. Family Health Law Blog 4. Little Legal Summaries 5. Avoid a Claim

Darin Thompson’s CPD podcast
Delena Hills – Justice & Legal Services for Clients with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) (#16)

Delena Hills (web) is a speech-language pathologist . . . [more]

From an evidentiary perspective, there are two principled reasons for having a limitations on civil actions. The first form can be found in historical precedents through ex ante statutes of repose, which establish a period of time through which an action must be initiated, barring any action after that time.

The second form is an extension of the common law doctrine of laches, which employs a discoverability rule based on reasonableness. The extent to which due diligence is exerted in this context is usually an important principle. This concept in common law also contained equitable principles that rights require vigilance . . . [more]