The recent public denunciations of sexual harassment in the entertainment industry in both Quebec and the United States triggered a visceral reaction. Actress Alyssa Milano’s call-out to use the hashtag #MeToo on social media to report instances of sexual harassment has gained incredible traction. Literally millions of people have come forward to shatter what was heretofore a wall of silence.
The Quebec Superior Court recently reminded us that a decision made by a council of commissioners of a school board must be treated with deference by the courts.
The extraordinary advances in technology over the last decade have made it increasingly difficult to determine where the right to privacy begins and ends. Through the lens of a cellular phone, the watchful eye of a surveillance camera or the inquisitive ear of a hidden microphone, this fundamental right appears to be increasingly eroded. Today a conversation can be routinely recorded without any particularly sophisticated or cumbersome equipment. In civil law however, many questions remain about the extent to which one’s privacy can be thus invaded.
In Povylius-Simpson v. Povylius, 2017 QCCS 2996 (appeal pending) the defendant had misappropriated the property of his incapacitated mother in Ontario. The mother’s heirs sought judicial redress and recovered the mother’s property, but needed to enforce the judgment in Quebec in order to recover a cottage located in that province.
The English version was published in the September edition of Canadian Lawyer InHouse magazine.
The Res Judicata and Stare Decisis Rules in Grievance Arbitrations: Where Do We Stand?
On August 16, 2017 the Quebec Court of Appeal denied leave to appeal from a decision of the Superior Court rendered on June 21 2017, on a motion for judicial review brought by the Collège de Valleyfield (the “College”) of an arbitral award rendered on May 25, 2015 by Arbitrator Cloutier (the “Arbitrator”). The leave was denied on the grounds that while a question of principle was involved, i.e. the principle of res judicata, it did not constitute a new issue or an issue of law that has given rise to conflicting judicial decisions.