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 (May 11 – June 20, 2019 inclusive).

Oral Judgments

Corporate Law: Fraud; Knowing Participation/Assistance
Christine DeJong Medicine Professional Corp. v. DBDC Spadina Ltd., 2018 ONCA 60; 2019 SCC 30 (38051)

Brown J.: “… the . . . [more]

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.

PÉNAL (DROIT) : Michel Cadotte, déclaré coupable par un jury de l’homicide involontaire de sa conjointe, atteinte de la maladie d’Alzheimer, est condamné à une peine d’emprisonnement de 2 ans et 204 jours, réduite à 2 ans moins 1 jour afin de tenir compte du temps passé en détention préventive, . . . [more]

An acquaintance of mine recently accused me of being an “expert” on administrative law now that I have been regularly writing on the topic. His choice of words, not mine. Correct or not, I took it as a complement. Then, based upon his misguided belief, he put an interesting question to me, which provided with some inspiration for this article.

The question related to an unspecified administrative tribunal with no statutory appeal provision and no statutory reconsideration provision. Apparently, the tribunal discovered that it had made a demonstrable and embarrassing denial of natural justice, failing to invite submissions on a . . . [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):

• Deputy Director, National Committee on Accreditation (NCA) (Full-time) | Ottawa, ON
  (Federation of Law Societies of Canada)

In preparation for the September 1, 2019, coming into force date of the amendments to Part III (Labour Standards) of the Canada Labour Code, the federal government registered in the Canada Gazette, Part II, Volume 153, Number 12, on June 3, 2019, the consequential amendments to the Canada Labour Standards Regulations. This is intended to align the Regulations with the new and amended Canada Labour Code provisions and to support their implementation. Additional housekeeping amendments are also needed to address other editorial and alignment issues. . . . [more]

(I’m very pleased to welcome Antoine Dusséaux from Doctrine as a guest contributor on this post. You can read more about and from Antoine below.)

Given my job (CEO at CanLII – saved you a click ) and law degree from a civil law program, I often get to talk about the differences between legal information in Québec compared to the rest of Canada.

I was an intellectual property (IP) lawyer before joining CanLII and although I wasn’t a litigator per se, I was routinely involved in IP cases before the Federal Court. Before that, I did a bit of . . . [more]

Periodically on Thursdays, we present a significant excerpt, usually from a recently published book or journal article. In every case the proper permissions have been obtained. If you are a publisher who would like to participate in this feature, please let us know via the site’s contact form.

Mini-Law School: Civic Education Making a Difference in the Community

Seattle Journal for Social Justice, Vol. 16, p. 381, 2018

Beth D. Cohen, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs| Director, Legal Research and Writing Program | Professor of Law at Western New England University School of Law
Pat Newcombe, Associate . . . [more]

Most of the evidence now used in legal proceedings and for legal services comes from complex electronic systems and devices. But because of ignorance of technology in general, lawyers don’t challenge the reliability of such frequent sources of evidence. As a result, computers, their software, and computer storage, are dealt with as though they were infallible producers of evidence. As a result, so does the law of evidence. But the technical literature warns repeatedly that software-based devices and systems are far from infallible. Therefore, the evidence they produce may not be reliable. The following articles provide several examples and accompanying . . . [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. Theberge-Lindsay v. 3395022 Canada Inc. (Kutcher Dentistry Professional Corporation), 2019 ONCA 469

[11] We agree with the appellant’s submissions that Ms. Theberge-Lindsay’s unequivocal resignation and re-hiring in 2005 marked a break in the employment relationship after which an entirely new contract was reached between her and Dr. Kutcher. There was consideration for that new employment contract, that is, Ms. Theberge-Lindsay’s offer . . . [more]

The impact of the Ford government’s 30% cut to legal aid has now been made explicit and that impact is to pare down the clinics’ contributions to access to justice. The cuts to the criminal justice system are important, but it is also crucial to understand how the cuts to the clinics affect those living in poverty in their everyday lives. (For the impact of cuts in other areas, see Legal Aid Ontario’s announcement.) . . . [more]

It is now relatively uncontroversial that lawyers should be technologically competent. A duty of technological competence has been included in the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct since 2012 and has subsequently been adopted in 36 states. Here, in Canada, a similar duty is under active consideration by the Federation of Law Societies of Canada for inclusion in their Model Code.

Much less has been said and done in relation to judicial technological competence; it’s time for this to change.

To be sure, the proposition that judges need to understand technology is not an entirely new . . . [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.

Practice

Getting Cross With Affidavits: Think About Specifying Whether the Affiant Swore or Affirmed
Shawn Erker

As an enlightened country with an enlightened legal system practised by (hopefully) enlightened legal professionals, we are accustomed to certain neutralities that make no preference for religious beliefs. One such neutrality is the legal equivalence between swearing and affirming an affidavit. …

Research & Writing

Yet More Bad Business Jargon
Neil Guthrie

Deck: . . . [more]