Legal History Commons^™

Canada’S First Malpractice Crisis: Medical Negligence In The Late Nineteenth Century, R. Blake Brown

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article describes and explains the first Canadian medical malpractice crisis. While malpractice had emerged as a prominent legal issue in the United States by the mid nineteenth century, Canadian doctors first began to express concerns with a growth in malpractice litigation in the late nineteenth century. Physicians claimed that lawsuits damaged reputations and forced them to spend lavishly on defending themselves. Doctors blamed lawyers for drumming up spurious lawsuits and argued that ignorant or malicious jurors tended to side with plaintiffs. Evidence, however, points to additional factors that contributed to litigation. Medical professionals in rural areas sometimes avoided lengthy …

Sex, Race, And Motel Guests: Another Look At King V Barclay, Sarah E. Hamill

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

The 1961 case of King v Barclay is something of a footnote in the history of discrimination against Black Canadians. If it is cited at all, it is usually cited alongside the more famous racism cases, such as Christie v York, as proof of the widespread nature of racism in Canada. In this paper, I re-read the trial decision and examine the original case file to show that the facts of King and the racism in the case are more complex than usually realized. King emerged out of a series of errors from both King and Barclay’s Motel which resulted …

When Wage Theft Was A Crime In Canada, 1935-1955: The Challenge Of Using The Master’S Tools Against The Master, Eric Tucker

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

In recent years the term “wage theft” has been widely used to describe the phenomenon of employers not paying their workers the wages they are owed. While the term has great normative weight, it is rarely accompanied by calls for employers literally to be prosecuted under the criminal law. However, it is a little known fact that in 1935, Canada enacted a criminal wage theft law, which remained on the books until 1955. This article provides an historical account of the wage theft law, including the role of the Royal Commission on Price Spreads, the legislative debates and amendments that …

Promises Of Law: The Unlawful Dispossession Of Japanese Canadians, Eric M. Adams, Jordan Stanger-Ross

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article is about the origins, betrayal, and litigation of a promise of law. In 1942, while it ordered the internment of over twenty-one thousand Canadians of Japanese descent, the Canadian government enacted orders in council authorizing the Custodian of Enemy Property to seize all real and personal property owned by Japanese Canadians living within coastal British Columbia. Demands from the Japanese-Canadian community and concern from within the corridors of government resulted in amendments to those orders stipulating that the Custodian held that property as a “protective” trust and would return it to Japanese Canadians at the conclusion of the …

On Being A Second: Grace Wambolt, Legal Professionalism And 'Inter-Wave' Feminism In Nova Scotia, Elizabeth Legge

Dalhousie Law Journal

Grace Wambolt was the fifth female graduate of Dalhousie Law School and the second woman to practise law in Nova Scotia. She was one of the relatively few female lawyers in Canada (up to the influx of the nineteen-seventies) who practiced law following the push by the first female lawyers for the elimination of formal barriers to practice. This paper examines the similarities and differences between the "firsts" and those who followed them, primarily by looking at the life of Wambolt and her letters and speeches preserved in the Wambolt fonds located in the Nova Scotia Archives and donated by …

Welcome To The Revolution, Kim Brooks

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

If you were able to close your eyes in 1867 and open them in 2017, you’d find that Canada was a surprisingly different place. Women have made sure of that.

The revolution has come along two axes. First, there is the dramatic increase in women’s participation in every aspect of public life—from education to the paid workforce, to public office, to science and the arts. Second, there is the effect of that engagement on the way Canada has evolved. If you could close your eyes again, take women’s public participation out of the equation, and then open them, Canada would …

Book Review, Ahmed White

Publications

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