Many years ago, when I was still early in my career as a nuclear medicine technologist, I had a co-worker named “Jackie” (not her real name), who I still think of to this day.

“Jackie” was an incredible person. She was a breast cancer survivor. She had a quirky, yet fascinating personality. And she happened to be cross-trained in both nuclear medicine and other modalities. I did everything I could to learn from Jackie, and she was always kind, patient, and understanding – basically all of the qualities we wish we encountered when we were articling, but never would because . . . [more]

One Sunday each month OnPoint Legal Research provides Slaw with an extended summary of, and counsel’s commentary on, an important case from the British Columbia, Alberta, or Ontario court of appeal.

Fraser Health Authority v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Tribunal, 2014 BCCA 499

Areas of Law: 

Administrative law; Jurisdiction; Patent unreasonableness; Workers’ compensation

~It is in error for an administrative tribunal to interpret its power to reopen an appeal to cure a jurisdictional defect as extending to include a review to determine whether its own decision was patently unreasonable.~

BACKGROUND: The Appellants were all laboratory technicians who developed breast cancer . . . [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) : Il y a lieu de retenir l’approche fondée sur le critère du fondement défendable («arguable merit») quant au critère applicable pour décider s’il y a lieu d’ordonner qu’une formation de la Cour révise la décision de la Cour supérieure portant sur une demande de remise en liberté . . . [more]

Summaries of selected recent cases are provided each week to Slaw by Maritime Law Book. Every Sunday we present a precis of the latest summaries, a fuller version of which can be found on MLB-Slaw Selected Case Summaries at cases.slaw.ca.

This week’s summaries concern:
Mechanics’ Liens – Civil Rights – Criminal Law – Police

Fecteau v. College of Psychologists (N.B.) 2014 NBCA 74
Administrative Law – Professional Occupations – Droit administratif – Droit des professions
Summary: Craft filed a complaint with the College of Psychologists of New Brunswick, against Fecteau. The Discipline Committee dismissed the complaint. Fecteau’s lawyer . . . [more]

As a complainant or two has reminded me, I’ve already bothered you about the weather — well, about winter, but same diff — and now I shall ignore this advice yet again and bother you about advice, a particular species of platitudinarianism. For a long time after 1873, when this wise judgment was issued, most of the bothering was done in person, and if you wanted to avoid it you could have . . . [more]

Back in 2012, I wrote a Slaw blog post on “Tracking Down the Brazilian Anencephalic Abortion Case, in English.” I thought I’d revisit this frequently-asked foreign, comparative, and international law (FCIL) legal research question and highlight key resources for English translations of case-law.

Generally, it’s difficult to find English versions of cases, but here are some standard tools for locating them by country and topic, as well as general strategies to use.

Research Strategies

Check if someone has already located an English translation of the case. Look for citations in full-text law journal and book databases, as well . . . [more]

You may remember a guest column posted a few months ago here on Slaw written by John Claydon, titled Canadian lawyers making a difference in Cambodia.

In it, John describes how a five-lawyer Toronto firm, Bennett Gastle, established Cambodian Legal Education for Women (CLEW), a charity that gives full four-year scholarships to young women from rural areas who would otherwise be unable to obtain a university education.

These young women graduate with LLBs from Cambodia’s leading law school, and though most of them will not be able to join the exclusive and expensive Bar, the grads (several dozen . . . [more]

Some people – notably information security expert Bruce Schneier – believe that if IT suppliers, notably software providers, were civilly liable for the harm caused by buggy products, they would have an incentive to be more careful. The market currently encourages the industry to put products on sale as early as possible, and with the most hype possible, whether testing has been adequate or security threats thoroughly checked.

Here is an overview of Schneier’s position. A classic statement of the issues with software is here.

Would they be more careful – and would we then all be better . . . [more]

In Flatt v. Treasury Board (Department of Industry), the Public Service Labour Relations and Employment Board has rejected a public servant’s complaint that Industry Canada discriminated against her on the basis of family status when it refused to let her work from home full-time while breastfeeding.

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.

Sponsoring Women: What Men Need to Know

Ida O. Abbott

Excerpt: Chapter 3, “Sponsorship is More than Mentorship”. Excerpted with permission from Attorney at Work. $35 ($24 digital edition).

The practice of mentorship is well known and well established in today’s workplace. A mentor is someone who helps a more junior . . . [more]

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has demonstrated the power of philanthropy to reshape the world. Among the many instances, an earlier one touching my own area of work, which involves research on public access to research and scholarship, has been the PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, which “is the first open-access journal devoted to the world’s most neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) …affecting the world’s forgotten people,” as the journal describes itself. The launch of the journal was funded by the Gates Foundation. The pointedness of its stance matters. The Foundation enabled a new and open journal that changes the . . . [more]

Microsoft gave details today about the Microsoft 10 OS. (Yes, they are skipping 9). For those still on Win 7 because you were not thrilled by the Win 8 interface, you will likely go direct to Win 10, as it attempts to address the interface issues that people did not like. (If you are still using Win XP – you are in dangerous territory, and should probably disconnect from the internet given that it is not being updated.) Win 8 works really well on a tablet (the surface pro 3, for example), but the touch design interface did not translate . . . [more]