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. Rankin (Rankin’s Garage & Sales) v. J.J., 2018 SCC 19

[1] A vehicle is stolen from a commercial garage. The vehicle is crashed. Someone is injured. Does the business owe a duty of care to the injured party? The question in this appeal is whether the courts below erred in recognizing a duty of care owed by a business that stores . . . [more]

Calls for access to justice improvements stress the importance of public-centered, multidisciplinary approaches. We know that in order to make the justice system more accessible, we need to diversify the problem solvers and our approaches. In response to this, The Action Group on Access to Justice (TAG) recently began working with Civic Tech Toronto in an effort to develop work that operates from the intersection of civic engagement, technology and law.

Civic Tech Toronto is a vibrant community-driven, volunteer organization that organizes weekly “meetups” where attendees learn about civic issues, share ideas and expertise, and develop solutions to civic challenges . . . [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 research, writing, and practice.

Research & Writing

Some Contractual Terms
Neil Guthrie

I generally stay away from drafting issues, but thought I’d mix things up a bit. Depositary and depository: Depositary in US contracts has always seemed wrong to me. Shouldn’t it be depository? No, in fact. The two words, while ‘often confounded’ (as the Oxford English Dictionary Online puts it), mean different things. …

Technology

New Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Online Resource
Alan Kilpatrick . . . [more]

Last month the Canadian Federation of Library Associations (CFLA-FCAB) issued a position statement on the treatment of indigenous knowledge in Canada’s Copyright Act. This three page position paper was prepared by the Indigenous Knowledge Protection Working Group operating under the CFLA-FCAB Indigenous Matters Committee. It provides background information, an analysis and a recommendation.

The issue, as framed in this paper, is as follows:

“Canada’s Copyright Act does not protect Indigenous knowledge, which may be found in published works as a result of research or appropriation. In Canadian law, the author of a published work holds the legal copyright

Nobody wanted to die. The life extension project raised millions with names of famous scientists and promises of ground-breaking research. Trustees earmarked the bulk of the money as a prize to the first researcher who solved the telomerase enzyme problem.

On the morning of January 2, 2020, two independent groups announced successful telomerase enhancement formulas. One was from Atlanta, and the other one from Singapore. The group that proved it was the first to record the formula would get $50 million to continue its research. Peer-reviewed publication was not relevant as both completed it at the same time. The only . . . [more]

Law month, Google released new features for its paying customers of Gmail, including Gmail Confidential Mode. The initial announcement stated,

You will probably have heard that Google has developed a system by which a machine can make phone calls to humans, notably to make reservations for hotels and restaurants (and what more human an activity is there?) – and the machine, using AI, can sound remarkably human. Apparently we have here a device that passes the Turing test with flying colours.

Question: should it have to tell people it deals with that it is essentially a robot? A lot of people claim to be unhappy with the idea that they may deal with the machine and not know it’s . . . [more]

On 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 (March 30 to May 11, 2018 inclusive).

Appeals

Charter: Equality; Pay Equity
Québec (Attorney General) v. Alliance du personnel professionnel et technique de la santé et des services sociaux, 2018 SCC 17 (37347) . . . [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.

FAMILLE : La juge de première instance, qui était appelée par les parties à homologuer une convention sur les mesures accessoires à leur divorce, a commis une erreur lorsqu’elle a décidé unilatéralement et sans aviser les parties de ne pas homologuer une clause de l’entente.

Intitulé : Droit de la . . . [more]

On May 7, 2018, the Ontario government filed Ontario Regulation 375/18 under the Employment Standards Act, to change temporarily how public holiday is to be paid and calculated. In essence, the government is reverting back to the old formula that was in place before the Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act, 2017 (Bill 148) came into force January 1, 2018. . . . [more]

In the first days of April, the Canadian Patent Office announced that it had allocated patent application number three million. This was the one millionth patent application since the ‘New Act’ Patent Act came into force in 1989.

Over the last several years, approximately 35,000 patent applications have been filed per year in Canada. The years with the highest annual filings were 2006 and 2008 when approximately 42,000 patent applications were filed.

The numbering for patent applications was restarted to two million starting when the ‘New Act’ came into force in October 1, 1989 for patent applications filed after that . . . [more]