Category: Lawyers

The BC Follies never end

plus ça change, etc

I suppose one good consequence, effective May 1, 2021, of British Columbia abolishing most of the right to sue for personal injuries sustained in motor vehicle accidents, in British Columbia, and going to a no-fault system, is that, eventually, its trial judges and personal injury lawyers will have fewer opportunities to display one or both of (a) their apparent lack of knowledge of the applicable law or (b) their apparent belief that the Supreme Court of Canada judgments don’t apply to British Columbia.

For example, there will be few opportunties for trial judges and trial lawyers to claim that this is BC law on proof of factual causation in tort: “The ‘but for’ test recognizes that compensation for negligent conduct should only be made where a substantial connection between the injury and the defendant’s conduct is present: Resurfice Corp. v. Hanke, 2007 SCC 7 at paras. 21-23.” 

It’s very possible that mistakes like this would decrease if trial judges would stop plagiarizing … I mean copying from portions of plaintiff counsels’ written submissions which were last updated sometime before 2010 and were wrong, then.

It’s worth wondering why the trial judges and lawyers who keep making this type of mistake can or won’t plagiarize … I mean cut and paste from something more current.

Alternate Facts In Canada: A Lie By Another Name Is Still A Lie Even In The GWN During Stanley Cup Season

“Federal spies, lawyers schooled in honesty after fallout over warrants”  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/federal-spies-lawyers-getting-crash-courses-on-court-honesty-after-fallout-over-warrants/article34720293/

The explanation, according to Murray Segal – (http://www.murraysegal.com/about-murray-segal.html) – is apparently the government lawyers failure to always be “comprehensive”.

“Speaking to The Globe and Mail, Mr. Segal suggested it is getting harder for spy-agency officials to tell judges everything they need to know. CSIS and its lawyers “are well-intentioned and extremely hard-working people who do high-, high-pressure work,” he said. The recent shortcomings, he added, were not about falsehoods so much as “not always being comprehensive in terms of bringing to the table all the issues a judge issuing an order might want to have.”

Sorry, Murray, though nice try but: a lie by any other name is still a lie and still smells rotten, even on the banks of the Ottawa & Rideau.

“Not always comprehensive” has to mean “incomplete” and therefore “not entirely accurate” and “misleading”. The federal gov’t lawyers either knew that or they didn’t. If they knew that they were in contempt of court. If they didn’t, that’s either because (1) they were wilfully blind; (2) reckless; (3) competent and diligent but honestly mislead; (4) incompetent; (5) some combination of all of these factors. In any event, if the reports to the courts were incomplete and the gov’t agencies knew, the gov’t is in in contempt of court.*

It’s as simple as that.

Mr. Segal’s well-honed bullshit facility – developed no doubt in his years working for and with Ontario governments – must have been working overtime for this one.

What’s also worth asking is why the Globe editors weren’t prepared to ask the article writer to rewrite the story story so it makes the point I’ve made. I’m assuming, of course, that somebody on the editorial board saw this, if the writer didn’t.

But, then, my guess is that if he’d used clear English, he’d not get the next similar gig.

*There is, of course, a 6th choice. The lawyers were “only following orders” and (a)  knew exactly what they were doing and thought it was proper conduct or (b) knew it wasn’t but didn’t want to complain lest they lose their jobs. Ain’t life as a working gov’t lawyer grand?