Animal Rights
I was pleased to act on an important animal rights matter a few months ago in Owen Sound. I represented the defendant who had possession of a rare dog. She and her boys were giving the dog love and affection and had arranged to have the dog “fixed” at the vets. My client had been gifted the dog […]
Skiing and conflicts of laws The law often tries to serve conflicting masters, like fairness on the one hand and predictability on the other. Businesses love and rely upon predictability. They also want to limit or cap their exposure to losses so that they can stay in business. Ordinary folks often just want fairness. This […]
Tax and real estate
There is an interesting Superior Court case out of BC to report, involving residential real estate and tax law. Buried in the paperwork of a real estate deal is a clause about the seller being a resident of Canada for Income tax purposes. The seller needs to sign or initial next to same. Apparently, this […]
Big dog clears up the law
As often is the case, an unfortunate event has lead to some clarity of the law. In a recent case called Wilks, the defendant owned a Great Dane dog. The defendant asked a friend to walk the dog, and the friend complied. Unfortunately, the dog had a seizure during the walk and fell down the […]
Auditor’s Duty of Care
For almost 20 years now, pursuant to a 1998 Supreme Court case, auditors have been largely shielded from liability for their work, if their corporate client goes bust because of fraud. The reason is an old doctrine called “privity of contract.” This meant that the shareholders or bondholders did not have a right to sue, because […]
The wind
Another municipality has lost a wind fight. The City of Kiwartha lakes was dealing with a wind turbine project. The project backers had completed all the necessary permits with the province and their site plan was dependent on creating an access road, where there was simply an old unopened road allowance on title. They […]
Self incrimination
The courts have always been loathe to convict someone from self incrimination until they can be satisfied that things were done fairly- that is why confessions cannot be accepted into court evidence until they have been proven to be truly “voluntary.” What about acts instead of words? I have always been concerned about the […]
The knock at the door
The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal just dealt with an interesting impaired driving/over 80 case. There was a very minor fender bender while cars were parking. A witness thought one of the drivers was impaired and called in the vehicle type and license number to the police The police looked up the registered owner […]
Best of intentions, can lead to dangerous consequences
Governments, at the behest of “progressive forces” years ago, created Human Rights Tribunals in each of the provinces. There is even a federal one, which is restricted to matters of federal law. They seem to love their authority and ability to “make waves.” A Quebec Human Rights Tribunal recently disciplined a comedian for offensive speech. […]
Lawyer civility, the supreme question
Some of you may know that there exists a criminal law contempt of court concept. In addition, there is a civil law (party v party law, as compared to government against citizen criminal law) contempt of court concept. The punishment for a criminal contempt of court is up to a judge and can include jail. […]