Civil Litigation

  • September 03, 2026

    Upcoming legal conferences to tackle AI, estate disputes

    Upcoming conferences listed by Saskatchewan’s law society will include a look into the emotional challenges in estate disputes, French terminology in family law contracts, and the current state of AI in the legal profession.

  • September 03, 2026

    Luke Chao, Lisa Donaghy, Adèle Gagnon-Leroux and David Yanofsky join Aird & Berlis

    Aird & Berlis had welcomed Luke Chao, Lisa Donaghy, Adèle Gagnon-Leroux and David Yanofsky to the firm.

  • September 03, 2026

    Ottawa murder appeal: Appellate review of a jury charge is not a word-search exercise

    A Jan. 13 issue of the Ottawa Citizen reported on the sentencing of Alam Buoc, who had been found guilty by a jury of second-degree murder. Superior Court Justice Robert Maranger described the crimes in exceptionally harsh terms, calling Buoc a “homicidal maniac” and “a monster.” He characterized the July 2017 killings as “cold-blooded and ruthless” and said the motive appeared to be trivial. It involved an alleged dispute over a bullet that Buoc believed one of his friends had taken. The sentence imposed was the same as if the crime had been first-degree murder: life imprisonment without parole eligibility for 25 years. Buoc appealed, and the Ontario Court of Appeal delivered its reasons on July 6, 2026 (R. v. Buoc, 2026 ONCA 492).

  • September 03, 2026

    Closing the loopholes: The HEAR Act of 2025 and the battle for merits-based art restitution

    In the early years of art restitution, after the signing of the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art in 1998, several museums in the United States launched pre-emptive strikes against claimants of looted artworks who expressed an interest in discussing or resolving their claim. Examples include the Toledo Museum of Art v. Ullin, 477 F. Supp. 2d 802 (N.D. Ohio 2006); the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston v. Seger-Thomschitz, 623 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 2010) and The Museum of Modern Art v. Schoeps, 549 F. Supp. 2d 543 (S.D.N.Y. 2008). The first two cases were dismissed in favour of the museums and in the latter case an out-of-court settlement was reached.

  • September 02, 2026

    B.C. Court of Appeal adopts open-access legal citation guide

    The B.C. Court of Appeal has issued a practice directive adopting the Canadian Open Access Legal Citation Guide (COAL), a free, publicly accessible legal citation guide, as its preferred method for civil and criminal filings in an effort to advance access to justice.

  • September 02, 2026

    SOCAN sues AI music platform Suno over allegedly infringing music outputs

    Canada’s largest member-owned music rights organization, SOCAN, has filed a lawsuit against Suno Inc., alleging that its AI music-generation platform generated and streamed outputs that copy songs in SOCAN’s repertoire, infringing the performing rights in those works.

  • September 02, 2026

    Yukon releases ‘What We Heard’ report on ‘sexualized cyber crimes’

    Yukon residents say victims who had intimate images that were shared illegally face barriers in accessing justice due to the expense of legal services, a lack of privacy and a rigid reporting system.

  • September 02, 2026

    When the estate freeze thaws: Familial breakdown, minority oppression and judicial remedies

    An estate freeze puts tax liabilities on ice, but heated family dynamics can melt away the tax benefits of the freeze.

  • September 02, 2026

    Solitary crosses constitutional line in prisons. Why not in hospitals?

    There is something profoundly unsettling about a society that regards prolonged solitary confinement as unconstitutional in prison yet appears prepared to tolerate the same isolation when the person behind the locked door is a psychiatric patient.

  • September 01, 2026

    Ontario restoring Toronto vehicle lanes following appellate decision

    The Ontario government has announced it has issued a request for proposals to begin the process of restoring motor vehicle lanes in Toronto that were previously removed for bicycle lanes. This comes after a Court of Appeal decision overturning the finding that the bike lanes’ removal breached Charter rights.