On October 29th the Supreme Court allowed the appeal of a controversial civil case to be remanded to the Quebec Superior Court for assessment. The court will hear the story that a victim thought she’d never have the chance to tell. It involves a 25-year-old sexual assault charge, a priest who plead guilty to the [...]

Every student has, at one point or another, wondered what may happen if they find themselves entangled in a dispute with their educational institution.  For one York University student, that musing became reality after a dispute with the university wound up before the Ontario Court of Appeal in Jaffer v. York University, 2010 ONCA 654.  [...]

Last week, the Court of Appeal for Ontario held that findings made in a disciplinary police hearing can preclude the re-litigation of the same issue in a civil trial.  In Penner v. Niagara, 2010 ONCA 616, Wayne Penner discovered that issue estoppel can apply to a seemingly dissimilar proceeding. Background and Facts In 2003, Mr. [...]

Conrad Black has another court victory under his belt after the ruling in Black v. Breeden, 2010 ONCA 547, where the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled his libel suits against former Hollinger board members can proceed in Ontario.  The defendants argued libel actions brought against them by Black had no connection to Ontario and should [...]

Last week, the SCC did not grant leave to appeal in Linn v. Kovach, 2010 ONCA 126, leaving intact the principle that jury trials may not be split unless both parties consent. The decision is particularly interesting as the amended Ontario Rules of Civil Procedure of January 1, 2010 led to a strong obiter dicta comment. [...]

Almost eight years ago, the Ontario Court of Appeal set out an eight-factor test in Muscutt v. Courcelles, (2002) 60 O.R. (3d) 20, to determine what circumstances Ontario could take jurisdiction over an out-of-province defendant. The OCA held that there must be a “real and substantial connection” between the dispute and forum for taking jurisdiction [...]

Quite possibly the single most entertaining jurisprudential moment of 2009 happened this Tuesday, when Judge Clay Land of the U.S. District Court in the Middle District of Georgia finally lost his judicial temper at the antics of Orly Taitz. Orly Taitz is now infamous for her championing of the “birther” cause, whose adherents believe that [...]

Imagine the following scenario: Bob owns a house in a town in Quebec. In 2020, Quebec passes legislation to the effect that no municipality may increase property taxes by more than 10% each year. In 2022, citing the need for higher revenues to account for an increase in police services due to rising crime, the [...]

On Wednesday, TheCourt.ca published a student post on the Supreme Court’s decision to grant leave to appeal to R. v. Caron. Today we publish a second piece on Caron, which was intended to be published earlier but a glitch in our process caused a delay. It is important to note that the following comment was [...]

On August 27th, the SCC granted the Alberta government leave to appeal in R. v. Caron, 2009 ABCA 34. Chief Justice McLachlin, Justice Abella and Justice Rothstein granted the leave application without costs and without reasons. Nevertheless, it seems absurd that making an unsafe left turn has turned into a four year long engagement with [...]