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. R v Villaroman, 2015 ABCA 104

[19] We have trouble seeing that circumstantial evidence could prove guilt where it leaves a reasonable (not remote) possibility that the event occurred in a way not involving the accused. A jury cannot act on an unreasonable inference. It is not necessary that there be actual evidence of that innocent possibility; the onus is on . . . [more]

Can efforts to avoid charges of spoliation of evidence involve violation of privacy norms?

Evidence

Data storage has become very inexpensive. Finding information among masses of data is steadily becoming more manageable – one can turn loose the power of Google or other search engines on one’s own business data. One can use various forms of predictive coding to sort files for particular topics or for degrees of sensitivity: what’s relevant, what’s privileged, and so on.

On the other hand, it can be dangerous not to keep data. The rules of evidence have always included sanctions against spoliation. In days . . . [more]

The various rights and freedoms protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms are sometimes at odds. Where does my religious right end yours begin? When two protected rights are at odds, who wins? According to recent news reports, a dispute of this nature has recently arisen in northern Ontario between a furniture company and its employees, after the employees attempted to organize.

Following a union certification vote, 69% of the employees at the company voted in favour of unionization. In response, the owner of the company closed shop. The business-owner cited his religion as justification for shutting . . . [more]

Ever since mid-August I have been thinking about what to stop doing. It is easy to write about eliminating low value asks from your work day but in practice it is really quite difficult. Does personally stopping something mean that I am passing that work to another? If stopping something is not delegating, but rather truly ending the service provided, how do I make a rational decision aboutwhat to NOT do.

Law librarians reading this will all know the sick feeling when someone asks for that textbook that they deselected, eliminated from the collection, recycled, tossed, weeded, in all otherways . . . [more]

The number of electronic resources in libraries is steadily increasing, despite the fact not everything is available electronically and it is unlikely that will ever be the case. However, while books are generally easy to use, this is not always the case with online resources. Lack of consistency or clarity in interface design means that there may be content or features that are not immediately obvious to the casual user. Librarians employ a number of tools to help users to get the most of these resources, with training being one of the most important.

Training is not one size . . . [more]

A recent Superior Court decision canvassed the existing law pertaining to permitting witnesses to testify via telephone or video as opposed to in person, and appears to have set out a template of the procedure by which such requests should be made and, if granted, carried out.

A few days before the commencement of trial, the defendants requested that five of their witnesses be permitted to testify via video-conference at the trial. Four of these witnesses live in the U.K. and the other witness lives in the United States. The plaintiff opposed the request which led to argument. The court . . . [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 technology, research and practice.

Research

Human Rights Search Engine HuriSearch
Shaunna Mireau

If you are doing research in the area of human rights, you might find HuriSearch a useful addition to your toolbox. HuriSearch offers a fairly sophisticated front end, allowing you to query any of four types of source (NGOs, national human rights institutions, academic institutions, and intergovernmental organizations), search in any of sixteen languages, and use word variations if you wish. … . . . [more]

On 26 August 1996, Business Week asked: “What’s Wrong With The Internet”? One criticism was that “Good Stuff Is Hard To Find”. Their suggested solution was: “Artificial intelligence will make search engines more discerning.”

One year later along came Google. It found the stuff you were looking for, without scaring you off with talk of artificial intelligence. Google helped more of us join the information revolution.

Meanwhile, today we should be on the road to driving nirvana via real automobiles. A problem for too many is that the “driverless car” is as scary as the “horseless carriage” would have been . . . [more]

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award­-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from sixty recent Clawbie winners. In this way we hope to promote their work, with their permission, to as wide an audience as possible.

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. Precedent  2. Labour Pains 3. Blogue du CRL  4. Administrative Law Matters  5. Western Canada Business Litigation Blog

Precedent
Meet the lawyer whose office sits above a grow-op

When Mark Zekulin was in law school a decade ago, his current job would have seemed unimaginable. As president and general . . . [more]

The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Chevron Corp. v. Yaiguaje concluded that a real and substantial connection to the Canadian court is not necessary to enforce a foreign judgement. This decision may be significant in signalling that Canadian courts will more willingly enforce the judgments of foreign courts.

The respondent plaintiffs in this case characterized the facts as follows:

This case is not about preventing potential damage. It is about paying for the remediation of massive environmental contamination.

The contamination in question involved the oil-rich Lago Agrio region of Ecuador. The plaintiffs, representing 30,000 indigenous Eduadorian villagers, filed suit in . . . [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.

CONSTITUTIONNEL (DROIT): L’article 6 (1) a), c), f) et (2) de la Loi sur les Indiens porte atteinte de manière injustifiée à l’article 15 de la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés et est inopérant; la prise d’effet de cette conclusion est suspendue pour une durée de 18 . . . [more]

For the next while the Friday Fillip will be a chapter in a serialized crime novel, usually followed by a reference you might like to pursue. Both this chapter of the book and the whole story up to this point can be had as PDF files. You may also subscribe to have chapters delivered to you by email.

MEASURING LIFE
 
Chapter 27
Vectors