Back in November of 1992, a Crown Attorney named Donald Angevine applied for an appointment to the Ontario Provincial Court. In the weeks that followed, he was interviewed first by the Judicial Appointment Advisory Committee (JAAC)—designed specifically to limit the appearance of political influence—and subsequently by the Judicial Council. According to Angevine, the Judicial Council […]
Trade-mark law exists to protect consumers from confusion. Unregistered trade-marks are protected at common law and exist as soon as the mark is used, while registered trade-marks are protected under the Canadian Trade-marks Act, RSC, 1985, c T-13 [Act] and give the brand owner a wider scope of exclusive rights than unregistered marks. Nevertheless, protection arises only […]
It all started at around the time of the terrorist attacks in New York City. He was a prominent dentist. She was an attractive blonde woman. Sitting the dentist’s chair in Dr. Jeffrey R. Burkes’ office in midtown Manhattan, Shari Perl Herman was getting her wisdom teeth removed by Dr. Burkes.
In Part III of its three-part analysis of the Fraser decision, TheCourt.ca looks at the sole dissenting opinion. For Parts I or II, click on the respective numeral. In April, the Supreme Court of Canada ("SCC") handed down its latest pronouncement on the relationship between the Charter’s guarantee to freedom of association and the collective bargaining process in Ontario (Attorney General) v Fraser, [2011] […]
The legal concept of property is fluid and dynamic. It evolves over time in relation to “changes in the purposes which society or the dominant classes in society expect the institution of property to serve” [CB Macpherson in Mary Jane Mossman & William F Flanagan, eds, Property Law Cases and Commentary (Toronto: Edmond Montgomery Publications) […]
Irate consumers can now ignore arbitration clauses and pursue class action lawsuits against corporations even after signing away their rights to do so in a waiver. In a narrow 5-4 split decision in Seidel v. TELUS Communications Inc., 2011 SCC 15, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) ruled that corporations could no longer preclude class actions […]
In what has been described as a “medieval-style attack on science,” Italian prosecutors have charged six seismologists and one public official with manslaughter for their role in an earthquake that devastated the town of L’Aquila. The 6.3-magnitude earthquake took the town by surprise on April 9, 2009, resulting in over 300 deaths. The prosecution’s case […]
In April, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) handed down its latest pronouncement on the relationship between the Charter’s guarantee to freedom of association and the collective bargaining process in Ontario (AG) v. Fraser (Fraser). In Fraser, a majority of the Court determined that Ontario’s Agricultural Employees’ Protection Act (AEPA) is consistent with the Charter’s s. 2(d) guarantee […]
June 2011 marked the thirtieth anniversary of the first reported cases of HIV/AIDS in the United States, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton commemorated the sombre occasion by recalling the disease’s history. In her remarks on June 5, Clinton noted that in the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, “the world was shocked […]
Last week, TheCourt.ca glossed a case heard at the Alberta Court of Appeal, which essentially blocks animal activists from seeking a court declaration that the City of Edmonton is mistreating Lucy, the lone elephant in the zoo. Justice Slatter, with Justice Costigan concurring, penned the reasons for judgment of the majority of the bench. The […]