Commercial Litigation and Dispute Resolution Blog

As “baby boomers” age, their families are left to confront a myriad of medical, social, practical and legal issues that can arise in providing ongoing care and support. Poor health, limited finances and, frequently, varying degrees of mental incompetence can make this task emotionally and legally difficult. Add in strained intra-family relationships and the ...

More often than not, sequels can’t live up to the original.  Case in point: Jaws 2.  But this blog post sequel aims to be better, like The Dark Knight.

In Part I of this blog post, we looked at the basic facts of Weaver v. Ball. The case involved two well-known scholars, Dr. Andrew Weaver and Dr. Timothy Ball, who have diametrically opposing viewpoints regarding climate change. In ...

When is a question not “legal” enough for a court to weigh in? The Federal Court of Appeal recently weighed in on this question in Canada (Attorney General) v. Democracy Watch, 2020 FCA 69, overturning the Federal Court on exactly this issue. The two courts’ decisions illustrate the difficulty in deciding what is and is not fair game for judicial review, and the ...

After the initial phase of suspension of non-urgent hearings due to the COVID-19 pandemic, courts in British Columbia have started to move towards alternative ways to resume the operation of the justice system. With the increasing prevalence of remote communication options, courts have developed procedures to conduct hearings remotely using video or ...

There is a wonderful scene in the 1976 Peter Seller’s film The Pink Panther Strikes Again in which he arrives at a Swiss hotel seeking a room. After a brief colloquy with the hotelier over obtaining a “rume,” he turns from the front desk to see a long haired dachshund lying quietly in the doorway leading to his suite. He asks the innkeeper, “Does your dawg bite?” and is ...

Many commercial contracts limit claims between parties, particularly for consequential losses, to instances of gross negligence. Many statutes circumscribe claims against government authorities to the same circumstances. The Police Act, for example, prohibits claims against the police except where the police have been “guilty of dishonesty, gross negligence or ...

Litigation is expensive, time consuming, stressful, and a distraction from your business. It should be avoided, if at all possible. If it is not possible to avoid litigation – you have been sued or absolutely need to sue – you should try to resolve the litigation as quickly as possible. The longer litigation goes on – and it can go on for a very long time – the more ...

Section 43 of the Alberta Arbitration Act is a statutory exception to functus officio

Historically, the doctrine of functus officio applied to hold that a decision maker could not reopen a hearing or amend an award that was final. This doctrine has, however, been relaxed over time in the judicial, administrative, and arbitration contexts. There are now a number of common law ...

Second marriages are common. They frequently occur when one or both individuals already have adult children. Sometimes these melded families work and everyone gets along, or at least are pleasant enough to each other. Occasionally it does not go that well.  In either case, but particularly the latter, difficult legal questions can arise that should to be addressed rather ...

The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) recently changed the legal landscape on the media’s ability to contest production orders that implicate journalists’ sources.  

The facts in R v Vice Media Inc., 2018 SCC 53 (Vice Media) involve a savvy journalist, an unsympathetic source, and the SCC’s unanimous decision to uphold the production order. The court split 5-4 in its ...