An appellate court’s duty: correct explanations

Lawyers, and others, who aren’t experts in the subject matter read appellate decisions, too. That’s one of the ways we learn. That’s one of the ways we become better at what we do.

An appellate court fails one of its duties to the profession, and to the public, if the court explains a decision  in terminology which incorrect and misleading, even if the decision is valid on the evidence.

Fault and liability are not synonyms.  The members of a BCCA panel forgot that in the reasons in Hansen v. Sulyma, 2013 BCCA 349.

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FREE Snarks and Boojums

One of the perqs (?) of writing for traditional, paper, law journals is the author’s offprint. One of the problems of writing for those journals is what to do with most of those offprints if one wants to keep one’s friends who aren’t compelled to accept one. They’re (the offprints, not the friends) aren’t as convenient as the old-style paper matchbooks for levelling off-kilter restaurant tables and the like.

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