Excited Utterances

 Image from The Lawyers Weekly  The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) will release its answer to this question tomorrow. The federal government posed the reference question to the court: is securities regulation subject to provincial or federal jurisdiction as set out by the Constitution Act, 1867 ? The Constitution Act sets out the division of powers, which determines what issues are under the control of the provinces- like education health- and what things are governed by the federal government- such as criminal law and copyrights. In reality there is a lot of overlap between the two. If securities regulation is a matter of “property and civil rights”, it is subject to provincial jurisdiction. If it is a matter of “trade and commerce”, it will fall within the domain of the federal government.  Not all the provinces are happy with the idea of a nationwide securities regulator, which was proposed by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty in May 2010. In fact, Ontario seems...

Have you ever been enticed by a movie trailer to watch a film, only to be disappointed by the actual movie? You may have legal recourse for this.  A woman in Michigan saw the trailer for the movie Drive  (starring Ryan Gosling), went to see the movie, and then filed a lawsuit when the movie did not meet her expectations that it would be similar to the Fast and the Furious series. Sara Deming is suing the studio that distributed the film and the cinema where she saw the movie, claiming that the film misled the public; there was very little driving in the actual film and it “bore very little similarity to a chase, or race action film.” She also claims that the film contains anti-Semitic content. Deming wants her money back. I too have found myself feeling ripped-off after seeing certain movies . But to file a lawsuit seems both frivolous and vexatious, just the criteria a judge needs to throw this case out the second he/she hears it.  Or is this legal action part...

T he issue of whether assisted suicide should be allowed in Canada is back in the courts and in the news. Gloria Taylor Gloria Taylor is a 63-year-old British Columbia woman who suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. She is challenging the laws that make it a crime, with a maximum sentence of 14 years, to assist anyone with suicide. The BC Civil Liberties Association, on behalf of Taylor and several others, has brought a lawsuit arguing that banning assisted suicide violates ss. 7 and 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This past week, Taylor’s motion to have her case expedited was approved, which means that her case will be heard in November and following that, the law could potentially be overturned.    One of the few things I recall from Constitutional law class is the 1993 case of Sue Rodriguez . In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected Rodriguez’s appeal and found that there was no right to assis...

We all know that Osama bin Laden was killed last week when the US busted in on his hiding place in Pakistan, shot him dead and buried his body at sea. Now one of bin Laden’s sons is challenging the legality of his father’s death. Omar bin Laden, age 30, accuses the US of violating international law when it killed his unarmed father, shot relatives and dumped the body in the ocean. Omar argues that the US should have arrested his father and put him on trial, and that the principles of presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial were ignored. The US’s defence to this is that Article 51 of the UN Charter allows a country to defend itself. Osama bin Laden had declared war on the US, killed thousands in 9/11 – he was deemed to be a combatant. His death was part of the larger goal to dismantle al-Qaeda.   Interestingly, both sides cite international law to support their arguments. My gut reaction is to cheer that bin Laden is finally dead, and to ridicule his son...

The male brain (google images) Last week, El’Jai Devoureau in New Jersey filed a discrimination lawsuit against his former employer. El’Jai claims he was unfairly fired from his job as a urine monitor when his boss found out that he is transgender.  Only a man is allowed to do the job, which is to monitor men taking urine samples at a drug treatment centre, in order to ensure that people recovering from addiction do not substitute someone else’s urine for their own during regular drug testing.  But that is not the issue – it is perfectly legitimate for certain jobs to favour one group over another – for instance preferring women nurses in maternity wards.  The issue here is whether or not El’Jai is in fact a man. He was born physically a woman, but has identified himself as a man all his life. In 2006 he had sex-change surgery, and now has a new birth certificate and driver’s licence that confirm his gender as male. El’Jai argues that he is a man, and his firing co...

The end of law school is in sight- my exams start next week and by the end of April I will be a Western Law graduate!   In order to obtain my licence to practice law in Ontario, the next step is for me to write the Bar exam in June and complete 10 months of articling- then I’ll be admitted to the Law Society of Upper Canada (LSUC) and will finally be a qualified lawyer. But as Ryan Manilla has learned, meeting those two requirements doesn’t guarantee admission into the law society. Manilla is a graduate of Osgoode law school who was recently rejected from the Law Society for failure to meet its “good character” requirement. According to the Toronto Star , Manilla was president of his condo board but got into a dispute with members over fee increases. He sent threatening emails to other members, and boasted that he got a thrill out of making other members squirm . He was kicked off the board ; he forged a letter pretending to be a private investigator alleging kickbac...

A class action lawsuit was recently filed against Taco Bell; the fast food chain is accused of falsely advertising that its beef taco is made of beef. The Alabama law firm that filed the suit says only 35 % of the “seasoned ground beef” actually contains meat. The rest is made up of binders, fillers and colouring (a mixture of isolated oat product, wheat oats, soy lecithin, maltodextrin, anti-dusting agent, autolyzed yeast extract, modified corn starch, sodium phosphate and other things). Sounds delicious. The lawsuit argues that what Taco Bell advertises as seasoned beef does not conform to the ordinary meaning of seasoned beef or meet consumers’ reasonable expectations. It also fails to meet the minimum standards required by the US Department of Agriculture to be labelled and advertised as beef. Taco Bell has aggressively challenged the allegations . In response to the lawsuit, the company launched a print ad campaign in major US publications. Under the headline “Thank you for ...

Image from cloviscartoons.com Three days ago, on January 16, Jean-Claude Duvalier made a surprise return to Haiti after 25 years in exile in France. The former dictator ruled Haiti from 1971 until 1986, after inheriting the presidency at the age of 19 from his notorious father nicknamed Papa Doc. When asked what prompted his return, Duvalier said he was not there for politics, but for “the reconstruction of Haiti.” The reconstruction? He is a year too late. It is greed that has brought him back. The international community has donated billions of dollars since the earthquake. Duvalier wants the unspent aid money, probably to re-start his lavish lifestyle after his funds were frozen in Swiss bank accounts and depleted by spousal support payments.  Some questions remain. Why did Duvalier show up just as the run-off election is set to begin? What role are France and the US playing in his return?   But most worrying is that there is so much speculation as to why h...