LawNow articles from June 1998

LawNow archives from June 1998

First appeal court look at guidelines.
June 1, 1998... The Ontario Court of Appeal has become the first Appeal Court in Canada to give some direction on the new Federal Child Support Guidelines. The judges were reviewing the payments to be expected from a parent in the $150,000+ annual income...

Oral surgery.
June 1, 1998... A plaintiff farmer sued a veterinarian who performed a caesarian section on one of his heifers. According to the evidence at the trial, the veterinarian put the scalpel in his mouth at one point while performing the surgery and punctured the...

Soccer season.
June 1, 1998... A collision in an amateur soccer match ended up before a judge of the Ontario Court General Division last fall. The plaintiff suffered a dislocated shoulder that required two surgeries to fix. He claimed the defendant deliberately charged...

No compensation for grief.
June 1, 1998... An elderly BC lady died in a nursing home after suffering from bad health for years and experiencing a third stroke shortly before her death. Negligence on the part of the nursing home staff was a factor and the family sued. The judge found...

Bullying no longer child's play.
June 1, 1998... As more incidents of children assaulting other children hit the media, Canadians are wondering not only what is causing this increase in youth violence, but what can be done about it. Bullying has always been a part of children's...

Water, water, everywhere.
June 1, 1998... The federal government is moving to ensure that drinking water materials that Canadians buy are safe. After years of outbreaks of the infamous beaver fever along with worse organisms lately in municipal water supply systems, many Canadians...

B&Es: an adult male activity.
June 1, 1998... A recent Juristat, the publication for the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, reported on the extent and characteristics of breaking and entering (B&E) offences in Canada in 1996. One notable observation is that of those charged with...

Backlash to feminism in the law?
June 1, 1998... Simon Fraser University criminologist Dorothy Chunn will the principal investigator for a study of (re)action and resistance to feminist attempts to shape law and policy in English Canada. "Clearly, gender equality in Canada has not been...

Remember this child.
June 1, 1998... There are few things in life more heartbreaking than the death of a child. When a child dies, hopes and dreams for the future of that child die as well. When a child dies in preventable circumstances and while in the care of those entrusted...

How words and law go together like tar and feathers.
June 1, 1998... Words. Seemingly simple, yet laden with all of the subtextual subtleties and complexities that the human condition can muster. As our leading instrument of communication, words have evolved from the primal pleasures of the prehistoric grunt...

Telling your story: some tips on giving evidence.
June 1, 1998... "What's your story?" In essence, this is the question that will be repeatedly asked of you if you are a party to or a witness in a legal action. While it is up to the lawyers and the judge to apply the correct law to the facts of every legal...

"Hello -- world?" (private telephone converstions are largely a thing of the past).
June 1, 1998... "It is certain every man has a right to keep his own sentiments, if he pleases: he has certainly a right to judge whether he will make them public, or commit them only to the sight of his friends. (Millar v. Taylor, 1769) ...

Tale of two countries: libel and freedom of expression.
June 1, 1998... The law of defamation protects a person's reputation from defamatory falsehoods. A publication is considered defamatory if it has the tendency to lower one's actual reputation in the estimation of reasonable persons in the community. The...

Wordsmithery.
June 1, 1998... "These Remarks Are Not the Official View, Nor, If I am Wrong, Mine." (David Lepofsky) At least some readers would guess, without being told, that the foregoing comments were uttered by a lawyer. It would not be exclusively demeaning...

Online trip to the worlds of law and government.
June 1, 1998... I remember scavenger hunts as being a social activity. Party hosts would group guests into a number of teams, give each group a list of items to collect, and then send us on our way around the neighbourhood. The team collecting all the items...

Disaster planning: who's prepared?
June 1, 1998... Imagine yourself in any of the following situations: 1. You have been building dikes and watching the waters of the river rise for days; at last, the dike breaches; water rushes in and fills the first floor of your house up to four feet;...

One city's disaster response and recovery plan.
June 1, 1998... Natural and man-made disasters are inevitable. The tornado that ripped through Edmonton in 1987, the floods in Manitoba, and the freezing rain that recently paralyzed much of Quebec and Ontario have underlined the need for a well developed,...

Insuring against natural disasters.
June 1, 1998... Insurance Policy We Care Insurance Company Earthquake Endorsement: Aegre perspicax agricolae fermentet incredibiliter tremulus ossifragi, semper catelli imputat aegre utilitas syrtes. Ossifragi insectat quadrupei, ut catelli imputat...

Cross-border custody disputes.
June 1, 1998... Modern transportation and communication have made the world a much smaller place than it used to be. Families are spread over the globe. Sometimes, one parent takes a child to another country without the other parent's consent. Then, custody...

Applying plain language in oral presentations.
June 1, 1998... Plain Language Partners Many people hate giving speeches more than they fear facing death. You can make the experience less stressful for yourself and more pleasant for your audience by adopting plain language principles in delivering...

Oppression remedy: democracy in the corporate setting.
June 1, 1998... A strong democracy respects the needs and legitimate expectations of its minorities. In the corporate setting, it is the minority shareholder who is most at risk. An unscrupulous majority shareholder (or several of them) may use his voting...

Freedom is a fragile thing.
June 1, 1998... This year marks the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). In the aftermath of the Second World War - and as most nations around the world still struggled to rebuild and recover from that conflagration -...

Could this be controversial? (issue of recognized categories of charity and Human Life International in Canada Inc).
June 1, 1998... Background Human Life International in Canada Inc. (HLIC) was registered as a charitable organization in 1984. Several years later its registration was revoked on the grounds that it was not devoting substantially all of its resources to...

Help!!! I'm looking for --.
June 1, 1998... Because of my connection with the Access to Justice Network (ACJNet), I always get asked for advice on how to search the Internet for Canadian law. I decided that in this issue's column, I would explain some basic strategies that have worked...

White collar sentencing.
June 1, 1998... Sentencing Corporations Corporations have no physical existence. They are legal fictions. They operate entirely through their assets, such as buildings, equipment, and products, and through their agents. Corporate agents include...

Title insurance - who needs it?
June 1, 1998... Title insurance is still relatively new to Alberta. Many believe it is of no real benefit as title to land is guaranteed by an assurance fund backed by the Alberta government. While the title to land is indeed guaranteed, title insurance can...

(Legal language).
June 1, 1998... Talk, talk, talk. Words, words, words. For some, words seem like the very heart of what it is to be human; for others, they're the stuff of lies, hypocrisy, immoral euphemisms like collateral damage. Whatever your chosen place on the spectrum...