I believe that what I’ve written below is a good enough summary, for now, of what practitioners in Canada’s common law jurisdictions need to know about the effect of  Clements v Clements, 2012 SCC 32 on the manner in which causation is to be proved in negligence actions. (For those who don’t know, Quebec is a civil law jurisdiction; all others are common law.)

These propositions are written for the Canadian lawyer whose knowledge of the relevant Canadian law is such that a Superior Court (or equivalent) judge would consider that lawyer competent to prosecute or defend an “ordinary” personal . . . [more]

This week the Ontario Court of Appeal released the decision in Taylor v. Canada (Attorney General), 2012 ONCA 479, in a special case motion assessing the sufficiency of fresh pleadings. The conflicting law related to the alleged negligence of Health Canada in applying the Food and Drugs Act by allowing unsafe temporomandibular joint (TMJ) implants.

Justice David Doherty framed the case by opening as follows:

[1] Government regulation impacts on most facets of modern life, particularly matters of public health and safety. If a government regulator exercises its powers in a negligent way, people can be hurt and suffer

. . . [more]

We came across this recently in the 1959 Canadian Law List: The Law Library of the Future!

Let’s compare the concerns of 1959 with 2012: Economy (the new tech costs less), Space saving (we all have better uses for space), Convenience (a.k.a. ease of access, dare I say on your desktop?), No binding costs or problems (a thing of the past), No bookshelves (see space). Does this sound familiar?

I do note that this new technology wasn’t cheap. Using the Bank of Canada inflation calculator: The SCRs that cost $118 in 1959 would cost $941.69 in 2012; this represents . . . [more]

I usually try for a light, not to say fluffy, topic and tone for these fillips. But today the topic, at least, will be rather more sombre; I’ll keep the tone as light as the subject will allow. Two subjects, really — and two I know very little about: statistics and murder. I’m appealing for help in understanding the former, or at least what I think is an odd feature.

A sad item in yesterday’s Globe and Mail informed us of a deadly shooting in Toronto. What struck me, and not for the first time, was the curious stability in . . . [more]

Life is good. I have two great kids, I have been married to the man of my dreams for almost twenty years and I have a lot of happiness and laughter in my life. Life wasn’t always so peachy and I often feel that I have lived two completely different lives.

I was the black sheep in my family, but not because I was causing trouble or getting into things I shouldn’t have. When I was growing up, I woke up and went to bed to the smell of beer. I use to hide anything valuable and worried that things . . . [more]

This is a post in a series appearing each Friday, setting out some articles, videos, podcasts and the like that contributors at Slaw are enjoying and that you might find interesting. The articles tend to be longer than blog posts and shorter than books, just right for that stolen half hour on the weekend. It’s also likely that most of them won’t be about law — just right for etc.

Please let us have your recommendations for what we and our readers might like.

. . . [more]

Well, the 2012 Summer Olympic Games will soon begin in London, England.

I am sure many of you are thinking: 100m sprint, marathon, water polo, rhythmic gymnastics, pentathlon maybe.

Is it just me? I hear Olympics, and my mind starts imagining protests over athletes being excluded, the odd bribe here and there, a little bit of trade-mark infringement, a few doping scandals, maybe demonstrators being kettled and baton charged, which all leads to: lawsuits!

There are lots of resources out there to understand the legal aspects of this summer’s London sportapalooza (and of sports in general):

• The most recent issue

. . . [more]

In a previous Slaw post, we indicated that Quebec’s Minister of Justice and Attorney General Jean-Marc Fournier announced the filing of a draft regulation aimed at making the Gazette officielle du Québec available free of charge on the Internet. Well now it’s official.

This regulation is now in force and allows free access to parts 1 and 2 of the Gazette officielle du Québec published on Publications du Québec website.

The regulation also modifies the price of the paper based annual subscription as well as fees for notices, advertisements and documents published in Parts 1 and 2 of . . . [more]

It’s a fundamental marketing decision for many law firms: How much content should we publish outside our website? For many years, the answer always seemed to be: none. Firms tried to serve and address every audience and every interest in one location. The predictable result was an incredibly cluttered website, both in its message and in its presentation.

The law firm website was never intended to be a single-subject, single-audience, publishing powerhouse. Fortunately, many firms have realized this and have wised up. Over the last decade, we’ve seen the rapid transfer of “commentary” from firm websites, pushing that content . . . [more]

Both Manitoba and Ontario recently added gender identity and gender expression to their human rights legislation as prohibited grounds of discrimination.

On June 29, 2012, legislation for Pooled Registered Pension Plans (PRPPs) has been given Royal Assent. PRPPs will be an excellent addition to the retirement savings options for small business owners and their employees. This legislation implements the federal framework for a new pension option for the millions of Canadians currently without access to a workplace pension plan.

Cloud-based Practice Management Systems (PMS) roll on as an increasingly alluring option for law firms. Packages such as CLIO and Rocket Matter have attracted serious investment this year, while adding features standard in their more mature desktop rivals, such as document merge. Other PMS available in the marketplace are also surprisingly powerful. ActionStep, for example, started life as a workflow engine, but has grown into a full-feature PMS.

For those in smaller firms who are reluctant to let “strangers” manage their server, I remind them that I would certainly prefer to occasionally lose access to my data, than to . . . [more]