Law Commons^™

Is It Time To Adopt A No-Fault Scheme To Compensate Injured Patients?, Elaine Gibson

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The tort system is roundly indicted for its inadequacies in providing compensation in response to injury. More egregious is its response to injuries incurred due to negligence in the provision of healthcare services specifically. Despite numerous calls for reform, tort-based compensation has persisted as the norm to date. However, recent developments regarding physician malpractice lead to consideration of the possibility of a move to “no-fault” compensation for healthcare-related injuries. In this paper, I explore these developments, examine programs in various foreign jurisdictions which have adopted no-fault compensation for medical injury, and discuss the wisdom and feasibility of adopting an administratively-based …

Making Private Copies In The Cloud: Yes, No, Maybe?, Lucie Guibault

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

No abstract provided.

Making Private Copies In The Cloud: Yes, No, Maybe?, Lucie Guibault

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Presentation at the Private Use in EU Copyright Law Seminar, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland.

Thin-Skull Plaintiffs, Socio-Cultural "Abnormalities" And The Dangers Of An Objective Test For Hypersensitivity, Eugene C. Lim

Dalhousie Law Journal

The extent to which "hypersensitivity" can serve as a legal basis for demanding additional compensation has always been a controversial issue in tort law. A key challenge facing courts lies in determining how the "thin-skull rule," traditionally related to physical conditions that predispose an individual to additional injury, can be applied to claims from "hypersensitive" plaintiffs citing personality-linked vulnerabilities of a religious, socio-cultural, or psychiatric nature. This article critically evaluates the viability of the "ordinary-fortitude test" adopted by the Supreme Court of Canada in Mustapha v. Culligan, and discusses the relative merits of a "multi-factorial test" in determining the admissibility …

Re Izaak Walton Killam Health Centre And Nsgeu (P-05121), Innis Christie

Innis Christie Collection

This is a union policy grievance regarding the Employer's approach to the compensation of employees for time lost on storm days. The Employer was compensating only if the time lost was for less than two hours. The Union believed that the Employer should pay for the first two hours. The Union seeks full redress, including retroactive compensation. The Employer agreed to the requested remedy if the Grievance is successful.

The grievance fails. The Union could not prove its interpretation of the relevant clauses of the Collective Agreement.

Re Canada Post Corp And Cupw (Fitzhenry), Innis Christie

Innis Christie Collection

The Union brings this arbitration on behalf of six employees who were denied special leave with pay in the context of a severe winter storm in the St. John's area. The Union seeks lost rights, earnings, and benefits. The Employer's position is that it acted reasonably in denying special leave, because it was unsafe for the employees to leave before the end of their shift, and by the end of the shift, the storm had abated, so that at that time they would have had no difficulty getting home safely.

Re Canada Post Corp And Cupw (078-00-00025), Innis Christie

Innis Christie Collection

The Grievor requested six days of leave to take care of her mother following surgery. Her supervisor assured her that there would be no difficulty obtaining those days, and encouraged her to apply for them after taking the time off, in case she should need to apply for more than the expected 6 days. When she returned to work and made the application, 5 of the days she requested were denied, on the grounds that the one day she was awarded and the two days of the weekend should have given her adequate time to find alternate care for her …

Lost Moorings: Offshore Fishing Families Coping With The Fisheries Crisis, Marian Binkley

Dalhousie Law Journal

The fisheries crisis has severely affected the families of offshore fishermen. In Nova Scotia, offshore fishermen normally spent ten to fourteen days continuously at sea and as little as forty-eight hours on shore between voyages. The fishermen and their families adopted strategies to cope with that work schedule. This paper focuses on how these previously beneficial adaptations conflict with the new situation these families now face when many men have been laid off or had their work reduced.

Tort Liability For Psychiatric Damage, Mitchell Mcinnes

Dalhousie Law Journal

One of tort law's great failures is its treatment of claims for psychiatric damage (or, to use a misleading but more popular term, nervous shock'). While a great deal of progress has been made since the days when liability would lie only if a plaintiff also suffered physical injury', or at least reasonably feared for her personal safety3 , the law remains largely unsatisfactory and in need of reform. Illogical and arbitrary rules abound with the result that worthy claimants are often denied compensation. Recent attempts at clarification and rationalization by the House of Lords4 and the High Court of …

Re Izaak Walton Killam Hospital For Children And Nsgeu, Loc 22a, Innis Christie

Innis Christie Collection

Union grievance alleging breach of the collective agreement between the parties effective April 1, 1989 to March 31, 1992, and continuing in effect at all relevant dates, in that the employer does not pay standby pay in accordance with art. 13.01 to employees who are required to carry beepers during unpaid meal breaks. The union requested that, as of April, 1992, all such employees be compensated in accordance with art. 13.01.

Re Memorial University Of Newfoundland And Memorial University Of Newfoundland Faculty Assn, Innis Christie

Innis Christie Collection

Union grievance alleging breach of the Collective Agreement between the parties in that the Employer is in violation of Article 16 and other relevant articles in not paying Academic Staff Members at their Y-value (salary scale placement) as revised by the Salary Parity Committee. The Union requests compensation for all members of the Union who have not been paid in accordance with the Collective Agreement. At the outset of the hearings in this matter counsel for the parties agreed that this arbitration board is properly constituted and properly seized of this matter, and should remain seized after the issue of …

The Employer's Intentional Tort - Should It Be Recognized In Canadian Jurisdictions?, Leigh West

Dalhousie Law Journal

At the inception of Canadian worker compensation legislation, an historic trade off agreement was made between employers and their workers. By virtue of this agreement, the right of workers to sue their employer in tort was removed and in return workers were to receive swift, certain, but limited, compensation payments for job-related injuries and illness, regardless of fault. With a few minor exceptions, this agreement made worker compensation the exclusive remedy available to an injured worker. It also lodged with the various provincial worker compensation boards the responsibility to adjudicate whether or not the injury or illness claimed was one …

Re Canada Post Corp And Cupw (Hogan), Innis Christie

Innis Christie Collection

Union grievance alleging breach of the Collective Agreement between the parties for the Postal Operations Group (Non-Supervisory): Internal Mail Processing and Complementary Postal Services, which expired September 30, 1986, and remains in force pursuant to the Postal Services Continuation Act, 1987, and in particular Article 10, in that the Employer discharged the grievor without just, reasonable or sufficient cause. The Union requests that the grievor be reinstated and compensated for all lost rights, benefits and earnings and that all reports, letters and documents relating to this discharge be removed from his personal file.

Re Corporation Of The City Of Toronto And Canadian Union Of Public Employees, Local 79, Innis Christie, M Tate, Bm W. Paulin

Innis Christie Collection

Supplementary Award relating to remedies for unjust discharge. Reinstatement ordered.

Re Island Telephone Co Ltd And International Brotherhood Of Electrical Workers, Local 1030, Innis Christie

Innis Christie Collection

Under the Collective Agreement, the Company and the Union agreed "to provide safe working conditions, proper and adequate tools, equipment and protective devices". The Union argued that this provision required the Company to provide safety boots. Originally the Company had examined the issue and intended to provide each employee with one pair of safety shoes a year (prior to this, the Company had contributed towards the purchase of safety shoes). Based on the experience of another Company, it was decided not to provide shoes but to initiate a new policy of making a greater contribution to the cost of new …

Compensation For Victims Of Crime: Trends And Outlooks, Richard Murphy

Dalhousie Law Journal

Modem day western society has only recently begun to pay attention to the plight of the innocent victims of crime. Statutes have been enacted to provide financial compensation to a victim, his dependents or someone responsible for his maintenance, for the suffering and losses that invariably follow from acts of violence. The two basic aims of compensation have been identified as the need to sustain public trust (in that societies core values should be protected) and the desire to demonstrate a concern for individual rights and well being.1 In this paper I shall examine the historical outlook on these compensation …

Compensation For Pension Benefit Losses In Unlawful Dismissal, G. England, E. Gardner

Dalhousie Law Journal

This paper describes, firstly, how the "real-world" pension benefit losses of an unlawfully dismissed employee are dictated by three main variables: the benefit structure of the plan; the legal structure of the plan; and the employee's position in the labour market. Secondly, it shows that the common law measure of damages in a wrongful dismissal action fails to compensate adequately those losses. In contrast, the measures of damages in collective agreement arbitration, and in adjudication pursuant to section 61.5 of the Canada Labour Code' create the potential for a more realistic approach to compensating the employee for his "real-world" losses. …

Compensation On Expropriation: The Effect Of Zoning And Other Land Use Restrictions On The Award, Daniel F. Potter

Dalhousie Law Journal

The purpose of this article is to ascertain the extent to which the existence of publicly-imposed land use restrictions affects the quantum of compensation payable on expropriation. As yet, this matter has not arisen in the case law of Nova Scotia. However, if the events which surrounded the plans for the now abandoned Sackville landfill site project, discussed below, are any precursor of things to come, the effect of use restrictions on compensation awards will not much longer be a moot issue. The problem has, of course, come before the courts and compensation tribunals in other Canadian jurisdictions where the …

Re United Steelworkers And Vulcan Containers (Canada) Ltd, Innis Christie, C Gareau, N E. Wrycraft

Innis Christie Collection

Employee Discharge alleging unjust discharge. Determination of quantum of damages.

AWARD:

In an award dated November 21, 1969, this board ordered the grievor to be reinstated in employment with compensation for loss of income except for wages she would have received in the first two weeks following her discharge by the company. Mr. Wrycraft dissented. The majority award stated that the grievor was subject to a duty to mitigate her losses so that any actual earnings and an amount equal to any earnings that she could have had if she had made a reasonable and prudent effort to find other …

Re United Steelworkers, Local 4820, And Haley Industries Ltd, Innis Christie, D M. Storey, D Churchhill-Smith

Innis Christie Collection

Employee grievance alleging a breach of the collective agreement dated January 9, 1968, in that the company assigned overtime work taking inventory to an employee who did not normally perform such work rather than assigning it to the grievor who did normally perform such work. The grievor seeks compensation for twelve hours work at time and one-half.

Re United Electrical Workers, Local 523, And Welland Forge Ltd, Innis Christie, S Bullock, E J. Orsini

Innis Christie Collection

Employee Grievance alleging failure to pay full pay for certain holidays.

The facts:

There was no real dispute between the parties about the facts. I should perhaps note at the outset that in its written statement of facts submitted to the board the union treats both grievances as relating to the July 1st holiday. The com-pany's statement of facts, on the other hand, treats McHarg's grievance as relating to the August 4th holiday. McHarg's grievance form itself does not indicate to which holiday it relates. He was sick for both of them and it is a reasonable inference that his …

Re United Ass'n Of Journeymen & Apprentices Of The Plumbing & Pipefitting Industry And Fraser-Brace Engineering Co Ltd, Innis Christie, F Quaife, A A. White

Innis Christie Collection

Employee Grievance seeking compensation for loss of wages due to unjust discharge.

The broad issue before us is whether the company is liable to compensate the grievor for wages lost during the whole period of six weeks for which he was unemployed. The general principle, stated at the end of our award on the merits in this matter, is that the grievor must have taken all reasonable steps to minimize his loss. The company pressed the argument that not only the grievor but the union as well must have taken all reasonable steps to minimize the grievor's loss. This board …

Re Stereotypers & Electrotypers Union Local 50 And The Ottawa Citizen, Innis Christie, S E. Dinsdale, Larry Sheffe

Innis Christie Collection

This grievance, pursuant to the Collective Agreement between the parties effective July 1, 1966 to December 31, 1968, alleges that the Company has failed to pay the proper rate of overtime for certain work done on the night of June 26-27, 1967 and requests that the employees involved be compensated.