A man was injured driving a go-kart at a track in Saskatchewan. He sued the owners of the track. The owners moved to dismiss the action because the plaintiff had waived their liability on an electronic form. The plaintiff argued that it was not clear that he had signed the waiver. Held: for the owners.

Quilichini v Wilson’s Greenhouse, 2017 SKQB 10 (CanLII)

The court considered SK’s Electronic Documents and Information Act, which implements the Uniform Electronic Commerce Act. The court properly (in my view) looked at s. 18 of the Act (s. 20 of the Uniform Act) . . . [more]

I am delighted to announce Finding the Best Ways Forward, a two-day national symposium scheduled for 15 and 16 September 2017 in Calgary, featuring keynote speakers Mr. Sheldon Kennedy of the Sheldon Kennedy Child Advocacy Centre and Dr. Nicole Sherren of the Alberta Family Wellness Initiative.

Finding the Best Ways Forward is aimed at gathering together leading stakeholders to share information and dialogue about how the voices of children and youth are heard, how their interests are protected, and how their evidence is received in justice processes. The symposium will generate innovative proposals for policy reform, best practices, . . . [more]

“Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” So declared Louis Brandeis over a century ago. Brandeis’ argument was that shining a light on activities both exposed wrongdoing as well as deterred it. The second part of his quote is that “electric light the most efficient policeman.”[i] Writing in 1914, Brandeis was ahead of his time. In 2017, his words should make us sit up and take notice. Especially when it comes to the administration of justice.

Justice Morris Fish – recently named to the Order of Canada – understood Brandeis’ quote more than others. Fish was a former . . . [more]

To combat link rot, the Supreme Court of Canada today launched an online archive of Internet Sources Cited in SCC Judgments (1998 – 2016).

Link rot refers to broken URLs or to URLs that direct to the original site but whose corresponding document has been removed or relocated without any information about where to find it.

From the Terms of Use:

“The Office of the Registrar of the SCC, recognizing that web pages or websites that the Court cites in its judgments may subsequently vary in content or be discontinued, has located and archived the content of most

It is understood that domestic violence has been known to effect employees at work in a number of ways; a recent study shows that the problem is widespread. “Can Work Be Safe, When Home Isn’t,” (PDF) by researchers at Western University and the Canadian Labour Congress, outlines the preliminary results of a Canada-wide survey of more than 8,000 workers on how domestic violence effects workplaces. The results are startling in many ways, but unsurprising in others.

For instance: . . . [more]

The federal private sector privacy regime operates on a consent basis. Unless an exception is applicable consent is needed to collect, use or disclose personal information of another. That consent can be express or implied.

In Royal Bank of Canada v. Trang[1] the Supreme Court of Canada took a practical and pragmatic approach to implied consent under the federal private sector privacy law, Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act[2] (PIPEDA).

Facts

The plaintiff, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), loaned the Trangs about $35,000. The Trangs defaulted on the loan and RBC obtained a judgment against the Trangs. . . . [more]

Each Thursday 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.

Trust Accounting in One Hour for Lawyers

© 2017 American Bar Association. All rights reserved.

Slaw readers can receive a 10% discount on purchase of this book. Use the discount code TAOH17 at checkout; this offer is valid from 1/26 – 4/26.

Sheila M. Blackford (@sheilablackford) is a Practice Management Advisor . . . [more]

Immigration lawyers are abuzz with Trump’s recent announcements on immigration. Today, he is expected to sign an executive order that will temporarily ban most refugees and a suspension of visas for citizens of Syria and six other Middle Eastern and African countries. His announcements regarding Mexico and his notorious wall have been alienating latin americans. This all good news for Canada. Lawyers from across the country have been getting more calls from immigrants who see a future of success, prosperity and, yes I will say it, freedom in Canada. To borrow the phrase, Canada has become the beacon on the . . . [more]

That’s the title of a 25 minute video that is worth watching if you have an interest in where computing is going.

Don’t panic if you have just decided to do more of you business computing in the cloud. That isn’t going away any time soon.

It means that we will see more edge or fog computing. Some of the computation that now happens in the cloud will increasingly happen at the edge of the network. That might be in IOT devices, our phones, cars, or Alexa type devices. Think of it as a return to distributed computing. Peer to . . . [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. Ernst v. Alberta Energy Regulator, 2017 SCC 1

[1] The appellant, Ms. Ernst, claims that a quasi-judicial, regulatory board, the Alberta Energy Regulator (the “Board”), breached her right to freedom of expression under s. 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. She brought a claim against the Board for damages as an “appropriate and just” remedy under . . . [more]

Last week, the Women’s March overshadowed Trump’s Inauguration. So what was it about Hillary Clinton that people found so nasty? What was it that triggered such comments like: “such a nasty woman”?

And what is it about women lawyers that trigger these attacks? Such as: “Marie Henein is a successful female lawyer at the top of her profession. Total bitch.”

In “Nasty Women and the Rule of Law“, Alice Woolley and Elysa Darling analyze this conundrum. They argue that women lawyers face this backlash because being a lawyer requires women to challenge and subvert gendered norms. Women are . . . [more]