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 Justice and collects, analyzes, enriches, and disseminates legal information in Québec.

ACTION COLLECTIVE (RECOURS COLLECTIF) : Une action collective contre Hydro-Québec qui invoque un trop-perçu de 1,2 milliard de dollars provenant de ses titulaires d’abonnement de 2008 à 2013 et découlant du fait qu’elle aurait manipulé les données transmises à la Régie de l’énergie est autorisée.

Intitulé : Molima c. Hydro-Québec, . . . [more]

One Sunday each month we bring you a summary from Supreme Advocacy LLP of recent decisions at the Supreme Court of Canada. Supreme Advocacy LLP offers a weekly electronic newsletter, Supreme Advocacy Letter, to which you may subscribe. It’s a summary of all appeals as well as leaves to appeal granted so you will know what the SCC will soon be dealing with (December 14, 2019 − January 8, 2020 inclusive).

Appeals

Administrative Law/Citizenship: Standard of Review
Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 (37748)

Standard of Review Summary
1. Default: reasonableness [1] . . . [more]

Each Friday, we share the latest job listings from Slaw Jobs, which features employment opportunities from across the country. Find out more about these positions by following the links below, or learn how you can use Slaw Jobs to gain valuable exposure for your job ads, while supporting the great Canadian legal commentary at Slaw.ca.

Current postings on Slaw Jobs (newest first):

• • Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor (International Economic Law ) (Full-time) | Ottawa, ON
    (University of Ottawa)
  • Assistant Professor or Associate Professor (Business, Tax Law) (Full-time) | Ottawa, ON
    (University of Ottawa)

By Lewis Waring, Licensed Paralegal and Student-at-Law, Editor, First Reference Inc.

In Greig v Desjardins Financial Security Life Assurance Company, the Superior Court of British Columbia (SCBC) considered a defendant’s handling of a plaintiff’s claim for LTD benefits. SCBC held that the Defendant’s handling of the Plaintiff’s claim for long-term disability (LTD) benefits was bad enough to violate its fiduciary duty and awarded the Plaintiff $50,000 in aggravated damages and $200,000 in punitive damages, accordingly. . . . [more]

In Denis v. Cote, the Supreme Court considered Canada’s new journalist shield law, the Journalist Sources Protection Act (JSPA).[1] The JSPA, which amends both the Canada Evidence Act and the Criminal Code, altered the common law on protections afforded to the confidential sources and notes of journalists.[2]

The common law regime balances two competing public interests in deciding whether names or notes must be disclosed to police or civil plaintiffs. In the criminal context, there is the public interest in the detection and prosecution of crimes (law enforcement), to which journalist notes and sources are . . . [more]

I find that I am out of step with my wife and most friends regarding the choice of format for reading a book. They prefer a print book either hard-cover or paperback. I prefer reading a book on my iPad or my iPhone.

Price. The price of a digital book can be a half to two-thirds of the price of a print book. Many digital books are free, especially those where the copyright has expired. Promotions can result in prices of $1 or $2 per digital book.

Highlighting. This can be done with the touch of a finger . . . [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. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65

[1] This appeal and its companion cases (see Bell Canada v. Canada (Attorney General), 2019 SCC 66 (CanLII)), provide this Court with an opportunity to re-examine its approach to judicial review of administrative decisions.

[2] In these reasons, we will address two key aspects of the current administrative law . . . [more]

Recently lawyer Elsa Ascencio @elsaasce tweeted about the Law Society fee structure. In her initial tweet she pointed out that the fees prevent her from servicing her clients.

In response, many lawyers chimed in. Jessica Prince @jesshwprince tweeted that the barristers in England and Wales have a progressive fee structure based on last year’s earnings. Lawyer Rob Kittredge @RobKittredge pointed out that the annual fees in some American states range from around $100 to $535. “Illinios: $99. Minnesota: $114-$250. NY $60-$275. California: $535. Florida: $265. Colorado: $325.”

Elsa has started a petition to change the fee structure. To learn more: . . . [more]

Welcome to 2020. (No, I can’t believe it, either.)

Managing projects is hard, so I’m going to focus for the next series of articles on how to avoid screwing them up.

Like Michelangelo said about creating his masterpiece sculpture from a formless block of marble, “I just carve away everything that doesn’t look like David.”

So let’s open the decade by carving away a bunch of stuff that doesn’t look like good Legal Project Management.

There are five aspects you have to manage to move projects forward effectively:

1. The project itself.
2. Time.
3. Money.
4. The client.
5. The team.

This month, . . . [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

We continue to have an apostrophe problem
Neil Guthrie

Tweets, like text messages, are often composed on the fly (as we know from painful experience emanating from the country to the south). … . . . [more]

I have looked into the history of data-driven and evidence based working in the health sector because I am curious about what we can learn from that for the justice sector. I can’t claim to have researched it all, but a few things stand out thus far.

First and foremost: without the shift to data-driven and evidence based working the huge increase in good healthcare for everyone would not have happened. Secondly: it took time to get there. If we discount early experimentation by Hippocrates, it took around 150 years for the health sector to embrace this way of working. . . . [more]

In its report of November 5, 2018, a review panel of the Canadian Judicial Council (CJC) found Justice Patrick Smith, a supernumerary judge of the Ontario Superior Court, had acted breached the Judges Act and the CJC’s Ethical Principles for Judges (these are currently under review) by taking a position that was susceptible to controversy, that of unpaid interim dean (academic) at the Boris Laskin Faculty of Law. The Review Panel concluded, however, that his conduct did not warrant removal from the bench. In November 2018, I posted a comment on my blog, Idlemusings, about “the Patrick Smith case”, . . . [more]