Everywhere I go, there’s an aquarium. When I took the library tour while I was attending the law rare book school at Yale, there was an aquarium in the library book stacks. And when I went to the AALL annual meeting in Baltimore, Maryland and decided to have dinner at one of the suggested eateries, Luna del Sea Steak & Seafood Bistro had an aquarium. What are the chances of seeing aquaria in unlikely places in the span of a month? Well, each time I saw an aquarium, I was drawn to the black, unmoving fish hidden in the dark . . . [more]

The American Bar Journal reports that some people are harassing their spouses by remote manipulation of smart home devices, like thermostats, TVs and the like – turning the heat way up, or off, turning TVs or radios on and off, etc.

Is this a problem in Canada? Is there a reason that the spouse left in the home can’t just turn off the devices, or the central control device like Alexa?

Would restraining orders need to deal with this kind of ‘contact’ or abuse expressly? . . . [more]

At CanLII we believe that there is a real need for legal information, including commentary, without paywalls. Over the last year we have been working on making the policy and technological developments that will support this goal, and today we are ready to announce the next step: the CanLII Authors Program.

Starting today we accept submissions of legal commentary from the legal community. If you are the author of a text that you would like to see on CanLII, whether it was published elsewhere before or not, you can now submit it to us for inclusion in our commentary section. . . . [more]

This is a general and quick review of who should or can be responsible if something goes wrong on blockchain. I am brainstorming, not educating. Don’t take this essay as legal advice.

I can think of two categories of potential defendants in blockchains: developers and users. But first of all, what is liability?

Black’s, tenth edition, defines liability as “The quality, state, or condition of being legally obligated or accountable; legal responsibility to another or to society, enforceable by civil remedy or criminal punishment.” I am interested only in civil liability here.

The key element of liability is that it . . . [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. Meads v. Meads, 2012 ABQB 571

[1] This Court has developed a new awareness and understanding of a category of vexatious litigant. As we shall see, while there is often a lack of homogeneity, and some individuals or groups have no name or special identity, they (by their own admission or by descriptions given by others) often fall into the following . . . [more]

On June 19, 2018 Steam Whistle Brewing and Great Western Brewing scored an historic victory against the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission: Madam Justice Marriott of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench declared Alberta’s beer mark-up regime unconstitutional, and awarded the brewers over $2 million in restitution. The full decision can be read here. The decision also marks the first time a court has been called on to apply the Supreme Court of Canada’s recent statement of the law in R v. Comeau with respect to the proper interpretation of s. 121 of the Constitution Act as it relates . . . [more]

The first stop in the lawsuit against the Statement of Principles concluded this month, with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice upholding a motion by the law society to transfer the matter to the Divisional Court.

The Amended Application in this matter disposed of the injunctive relief originally sought, and instead seeks a number of declarations, including an interpretation and content of what the Statement of Principles obligation means, that the requirements are ultra vires the Law Society Act, and challenging the constitutionality of the requirements.

It’s the latter relief, the constitutionality of the Statement of Principles, that . . . [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 (June 22 to July 13, 2018 inclusive).

Appeals

Civil Procedure/Tobacco Litigation: Disclosure
British Columbia v. Philip Morris International, Inc., 2018 SCC 36 (37524)

Health databases constitute “health care records and documents of particular individual insured . . . [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.

TRAVAIL : Le Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales, qui a fait preuve de discrimination fondée sur la grossesse en refusant d’accorder un poste à une avocate parce qu’elle était enceinte, doit lui attribuer ce poste.

Intitulé : Association des procureurs aux poursuites criminelles et pénales et Directeur des poursuites . . . [more]

In January of this year, I canvassed developments on electronic wills in Australia, New Zealand, England & Wales, the U.S. and Canada. Since that time, the Uniform Law Commission (ULC)’s drafting committee in the U.S. has been moving the file forward. I am not aware of any law reform action Down Under, and the Law Commission of England & Wales is still thinking about it. Canada is discussed later in this column.

UNITED STATES

In late July, the ULC will give first reading to an Electronic Wills Act. The “Annual Meeting Draft” is quite compact yet covers the . . . [more]