Two recent decisions — one from the British Columbia Court of Appeal and one from an Ontario class action case management judge — have revisited the ambiguous question of whether solicitor-client privilege attached to a lawyer’s accounts. One might have thought that following the Supreme Court’s decision almost 10 years ago in Maranda v. Richer that the issue was resolved. However, these latest decisions suggest that the question is still live.

Canadian courts are increasingly concerned about the quality of evidence at class action certification hearings. As a result, first steps are being made towards Daubert-like rules of admissibility.

Ontario’s highest court recently upheld an award for nearly $20 million in damages against four key employees who quit their jobs with only two weeks’ notice. The decision is an important reminder to in-house counsel that the obligation to provide reasonable notice is a two-way street. The key is to protect your organization at the outset of the employment relationship with a well-drafted employment agreement.

Last March, Ontario Superior Court Justice Paul Perell granted an order declaring that the limitation period associated with the secondary market claim for misrepresentation provided by the Ontario Securities Act could be suspended pursuant to s. 28(1) of the Class Proceedings Act once this cause of action was pleaded. This decision was overturned last month when the Court of Appeal ruled that the tolling provision of the CPA will not be triggered for secondary market claims until leave is granted under section 138.8 of the Securities Act.

Democracy and the rule of law are cornerstones of the Canadian Constitution. These concepts have been appealed to by both sides in the dispute over the Harper government’s plan to end the Canadian Wheat Board’s monopoly, and have resulted in two conflicting court decisions. In December, a Federal Court judge said that the government’s plan violated the rule of law. More recently, a judge of the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench held that it did not. These diametrically opposed decisions stem from different approaches to foundational concepts of democracy and the rule of law.

Last May, Ontario Superior Court Justice Paul Perell certified a class proceeding under the Class Proceedings Act on the condition that the representative plaintiffs plead a fresh as amended statement of claim with revisions to the proposed class definition and proposed common issues. This decision was overturned by the Divisional Court on the basis that the defendant would be denied an opportunity to make submissions in respect of the amended statement of claim.

Throw out the law that has been piling up since Smells Like Teen Spirit charted in 1991. Never to be heard again from the mouths of litigators are the names Pizza Pizza, Irving Ungerman, and Aguonie. And consign the cases under the new Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 20 decided in 2010 and 2011 to the dustbin of history.

Daughter of the Empire State: The Life of Judge Jane Bolin by Jacqueline A. McLeod University of Illinois Press, 2011

We all get nostalgic for the good old days, but every once in a while you learn something that shows you just how far we’ve come. Until reading Daughter of the Empire State: The Life of Judge Jane Bolin, I didn’t know the American Red Cross kept blood donated by white and black donors segregated until the 1940s.

I think that I share the frustration of many of the previous members of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, after reading the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Canada (Canadian Human Rights Commission) v. Canada (Attorney General), where it held that the tribunal does not have the power to award costs under s. 53(2)(d) of the Canadian Human Rights Act. The ambiguous style of cause is unhelpful: the case arose out of a decision by the tribunal that awarded a successful complainant, Donna Mowat, with legal costs.

The Ontario Court of Appeal has cut the amount Great-West Lifeco Inc. must pay to former London Life Insurance Co. policyholders for illegally using money from their accounts to finance the takeover 14 years ago.