Posts Tagged ‘Canada’

International law roundup

Torts roundup

  • “Fla. jury awards $75M to family of dead smoker” [AP] Bad trends catch on 10+ years later up North: Quebec becomes fifth province to sue tobacco companies [Montreal Gazette] We passed a law to let us win, so there: “Manitoba sues tobacco companies” [provincial press release]
  • “Can There Be Liability When Sending Texts To A Driver?” A debate [Ray Mollica and Mark Bower, Turkewitz; earlier here and here]
  • Ted Frank vs. Ron Unz on Vioxx health effects [PoL, American Conservative]
  • Major Florida PI firm denies State Farm claims-inflation allegations [Orlando Sentinel]
  • East St. Louis, Ill.: jury awards nearly $179 million to 3 injured grain elevator workers [Post-Dispatch]
  • Siding with plaintiff’s bar, Minnesota Gov. Dayton vetoes legislation reducing state’s general statute of limitations from six years to four, reducing prejudgment interest from current 10%/year, reforming offer of settlement rules, and allowing interlocutory class certification appeal [NFIB] He does however sign one protecting state/local governments [Star-Trib]
  • Multiple asbestos claims raise eyebrows in Delaware [SE Texas Record] On trends in asbestos litigation [Ben Berkowitz, Reuters]

Labor and employment law roundup

International law roundup

  • U.N. rapporteur lectures U.S. on Indian rights, calls for “some form of land restoration” [IPSNews] “So, the UN Wants the U.S. to Return Land to Indian Tribes…” [Claudia Rosett] In Chapters 10 and 11 of Schools for Misrule, I discuss the growing cooperation between Indian land-claim activists in this country and international organizations both within and without of the U.N. system. (More: I expand theme into a Daily Caller piece).
  • “Union Uses NAFTA To Fight Alabama Immigration Law” [Sean Higgins, IBD]
  • “UN hunger expert investigates Canada” [Hillel Neuer, National Post]”Everyone’s grievances can thus be transformed into human rights violations” [Jacob Mchangama and Aaron Rhodes, Freedom Rights Project, PDF]
  • Admittedly, at a “lefty Quaker school in the Northeast”: “You know international law is getting some traction when your fourth-grader is being taught about the Convention on the Rights of the Child.” [Peter Spiro, OJ]
  • New Third Circuit opinion in remanded U.S. v. Bond case, which tested limits of treaty power, could tee up issue for another SCOTUS outing [Spiro/OJ, FedSoc Blog, Liberty and Law; earlier]
  • “Canada’s Much Better and Very Different Alien Tort Statute” [Ku/OJ]
  • Implementation of United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) could draw inspiration from U.S. experience with institutional reform lawsuits [Michael Perlin via Bagenstos]

Canada: lender’s inspection may create liability to third parties

A British Columbia court has allowed a suit to proceed arguing that a government lending program which included inspection of the property to be renovated could incur a duty to third persons who might later fall on a staircase whose faults allegedly would have been detected had inspection not been negligent. [Erik Magraken; Benoit v. Banfield]

Ontario: dad arrested after 4 year old draws picture of gun

The trouble began at school in Kitchener, Ontario, when a 4-year-old girl drew a picture of her father, Jessie Sansone, with a gun in his hand. When asked about the gun in the picture, according to police, the girl said her siblings played with it and that it scared her. “The school principal, police and child welfare officials… said they had to investigate to determine whether there was a gun in Sansone’s house that children had access to.” And apparently that “investigation” had to involve detaining and strip-searching Sansone when he showed up at school to pick up his daughter, searching his home, and spiriting away his other children to Family and Children’s Services to be interviewed. Sansone was told he was being charged with possession of a firearm — from the article’s context, an offense in itself in that Second-Amendment-less locality. When police searched the Sansone home, they found “a clear plastic toy gun that shoots soft plastic biodegradable BBs and retails for around $20 at Walmart” and he was released without charges. [The Record; Joe O’Connor, National Post]

February 24 roundup

  • Melissa Kite, columnist with Britain’s Spectator, writes about her low-speed car crash and its aftermath [first, second, third, fourth]
  • NYT’s Nocera lauds Keystone pipeline, gets called “global warming denier” [NYTimes] More about foundations’ campaign to throttle Alberta tar sands [Coyote] Regulations mandating insurance “disclosures” provide another way for climate change activists to stir the pot [Insurance and Technology]
  • “Cop spends weeks to trick an 18-year-old into possession and sale of a gram of pot” [Frauenfelder, BB]
  • Federal Circuit model order, pilot program could show way to rein in patent e-discovery [Inside Counsel, Corporate Counsel] December Congressional hearing on discovery costs [Lawyers for Civil Justice]
  • Trial lawyer group working with Senate campaigns in North Dakota, Nevada, Wisconsin, Hawaii [Rob Port via LNL] President of Houston Trial Lawyers Association makes U.S. Senate bid [Chron]
  • Panel selection: “Jury strikes matter” [Ron Miller, Maryland Injury]
  • Law-world summaries/Seventeen syllables long/@legal_haiku (& for a similar treatment of high court cases, check out @SupremeHaiku)