Category: Canadian law
Bayes Theorem, Revisited
It won’t surprise some of you that I have an interest in evidence theory. I wrote, recently, on Slaw, about the use of Bayes Theorem in civil litigation in Canada. You will find that posting, as well as other discussions of Bayes Theorem on Slaw at this link.
I just learned of – I stumbled across it looking for something else – a recent doctoral theses on the use of Bayes Theorem in litigation. (The Americans fought this battle more than a decade ago: see the paper here.) We’re slow in Canada. It must be the weather. It can’t be that Canada is a “slow zone” as in, for example, Vernor Vinge’s “A Fire Upon The Deep“.
In any event, it’s a Canadian thesis, to boot.
Congratulations Mr. Justice Russell Brown (Alberta Q. B.)
The University of Alberta Faculty of Law’s loss (for now) is the Canadian judicial system’s gain. Russ Brown, who until recently was “merely” a professor of law (and an associate dean) is now Mr. Justice Russell Brown, a judge of the trial division of Alberta’s Queen’s Bench.
From http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/news-nouv/ja-nj/2013/doc_32849.html
The Honourable Russell S. Brown, an associate counsel with Miller Thomson LLP and associate professor of law at the University of Alberta, is appointed a judge of Her Majesty’s Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta …
Just rattle your jewellery
Readers of this blog who feel compelled to recite hosannas about the state of the Supreme Court of Canada’s jurisprudence dealing with causation in negligence – both factual causation and normative causation (i.e., legal causation without factual causation: think “material contribution”) and the need to separate the issue of causation from the issue of compensable damage – would do well to read, and consider, a very recent article by one of the deans of the subject in the Commonwealth: Jane Stapleton, “Unnecessary Causes”, 2013 128 Law Quarterly Review 39. The article is succinct enough (26 pages). It has subheadings, too. While the piece is notionally about United Kingdom law, it is generally applicable to common law Canada and has a section on Clements. The article is available online if one has access to Westlaw.
General Damages – future – assessment: Onus? What onus? Whose onus?
The issue is the assessment of the portion of the plaintiff’s future damages where the plaintiff has a relevant pre-existing condition caused by a non-tortious event. What if the evidence is equally balanced pro and con as to what might happen in the future: the future meaning the period after the trial. Since the plaintiff has the onus of proof, does this mean that the plaintiff’s action fails in relation to the claims for which the evidence is equally balanced?
Subrogation Waiver – Kruger Products Limited v. First Choice Logistics Inc., 2013 BCCA 3
Leases, construction contracts, and contracts governing other commercial relationships often have clauses limiting the liability of a party (and some non-parties) to the contract in the event of an occurrence which causes loss to a party to the contract. Clauses which require one party to the contract to obtain insurance in respect of the type of loss that occurred may have that consequence, even where the contract (or the policy) does not specifically provide that subrogation (by the insurer of the injured party) is waived.
The British Columbia Court of Appeal provides an excellent review of the law in Kruger Products Limited v. First Choice Logistics Inc., 2013 BCCA 3.
The 4th Monkey Still in Abstenia 