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Dalhousie Law Journal

Articles 31 - 44 of 44

Full-Text Articles in Torts

Morguard Investments Limited: Reforming Federalism From The Top, Peter Finkle, Simon Coakeley Oct 1991

Morguard Investments Limited: Reforming Federalism From The Top, Peter Finkle, Simon Coakeley

Dalhousie Law Journal

Nations are not only unified markets, but usually they are at least that. In most discussions about national unity, adequate account is taken of the importance of the free movement of goods, capital and people. Rarely, though, does the discussion encompass the necessity of legally assuring such movement in the domestic marketplace through the practical modality of secure remedies for breaches of obligations in contracts and tort. De Savoye v. Morguard Investments Ltd is a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of Canada that considers the extent of jurisdiction that provincial courts may exercise and the associated concern with the …

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Canadian Tort Law: A Review For The Nineties, B T. Hill Oct 1991

Canadian Tort Law: A Review For The Nineties, B T. Hill

Dalhousie Law Journal

My purpose in writing this review follows from a tradition initiated by feminist scholars. My analysis of Canadian Tort Law. Cases, Notes and Materials begins with a survey of the casebook with commentary concerning its historical development as a casebook, focussing on instances where gender issues are raised. I then offer a critique concerning the lack of consideration and misappropriation of gender issues in the recently released 1990 edition of the casebook, using illustrative examples from the casebook and a selection of two feminists' critique of tort law. Some modest suggestions for improvement are made throughout the review, and the …

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The Employer's Intentional Tort - Should It Be Recognized In Canadian Jurisdictions?, Leigh West Oct 1990

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 …

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The Question Of A Duty To Rescue In Canadian Tort Law: An Answer From France, Mitchell Mcinnes May 1990

The Question Of A Duty To Rescue In Canadian Tort Law: An Answer From France, Mitchell Mcinnes

Dalhousie Law Journal

A man witnesses a canoeist drowning a short distance from the shore.2 For over forty minutes the tenants of an apartment complex listen to the tortured screams of a woman being murdered in the streets below.3 A handful of railway employees watch a boy bleed to death for want of medical attention after he was struck by a passing car.4 The owner of a pleasure craft learns that one of his passengers has fallen overboard into an icy lake.' An innocent party to a motor vehicle accident finds that the driver at fault was injured as a result of the …

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Structured Settlements And Structured Judgements: Do They Work And Do We Want Them?, Leanne Todd Oct 1989

Structured Settlements And Structured Judgements: Do They Work And Do We Want Them?, Leanne Todd

Dalhousie Law Journal

Structured settlements are an alternative to traditional lump sum settlements for personal and fatal injuries claims. Under a structured settlement the defendant, generally a casualty insurer, satisfies all or part of the claim via periodic payments to the plaintiff.

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Using Statistical Techniques To Predict Non-Pecuniary Damage Awards In Personal Injury Cases, Jack Effron, John Forster Apr 1989

Using Statistical Techniques To Predict Non-Pecuniary Damage Awards In Personal Injury Cases, Jack Effron, John Forster

Dalhousie Law Journal

The real issue in personal injury cases is often damages. Our concepts and law relating to negligence and other aspects of personal injury are sufficiently developed that parties can often agree upon who is at fault. Yet damages law, for all the cases and principles which have been decided, remains the least intelligible and thus the least predictable for parties and their counsel. When parties have to go to trial in a personal injury case, it is often primarily to decide who should pay what.

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Duress In The Canadian And English Law Of Restitution:, G Hl Fridman Sep 1987

Duress In The Canadian And English Law Of Restitution:, G Hl Fridman

Dalhousie Law Journal

The early history of restitution reveals that duress was relevant in two situations. In the first, one party compelled another to pay him money by reason of some threat. In the second situation, one party compelled another to pay him money which was in fact owed by a third party to the one exercising the compulsion. The former situation was a straight forward one, in which the party exercising the duress falsely or legitimately (though perhaps erroneously) caused the party subjected to the duress to accept that a debt existed between the two parties, or that the party exerting pressure …

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Apportionment Of Liability And The Intentional Torts: The Time Is Right For Change, Brian C. Crocker Mar 1982

Apportionment Of Liability And The Intentional Torts: The Time Is Right For Change, Brian C. Crocker

Dalhousie Law Journal

In a tort action based solely on the Defendant's wrongful intentional conduct, both parties have been, until recently, at a decided disadvantage. There could be no apportionment of liability between the Plaintiff and Defendant. Fault concepts were seen in absolute terms. Either the Defendant was totally liable for the damages or he was not liable at all. Principles of apportionment of liability generally were not seen as applicable to the intentional torts. Thus, a Plaintiff's contributory fault was irrelevant in determining the Defendant's liability. Likewise, provocation was not a 'defence' and did not, in all jurisdictions, always reduce compensatory damages. …

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Defamation In Broadcasting, Keith R. Evans Nov 1979

Defamation In Broadcasting, Keith R. Evans

Dalhousie Law Journal

The law of defamation is not new to the world, nor limited to certain nations: Moses commanded: "Neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbour." The Far East punished slander. The Twelve Tables of Rome recognized defamation. Early Anglo- Saxon and Germanic laws took a serious view of insult by word or gesture. Punishment included excision of the tongue. In England, a book on libel was written three hundred years ago. Under a French ordinance of the past century the publication of a libel was punished by whipping and on a second offence with death. ' Obviously, the consequences …

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An Expert's Reputation, Malcolm Merry May 1979

An Expert's Reputation, Malcolm Merry

Dalhousie Law Journal

"Comment is free, but facts are sacred" is both a good working tale for journalists and a fairly accurate encapsulation of their obligations under the law of libel. The difficulty of course lies in sorting out fact from comment. It was this difficulty that faced the Nova Scotia courts in Barltrop v. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1 and the appeal judges came up with a different answer from the trial judge. The case was one of the legal reverberations of the controversy about lead poisoning in Toronto during 1974. The C.B.C.'s programme "As It Happens" broadcast a special feature on the …

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Seat Belts And Contributory Negligence, Frans F. Slatter Oct 1977

Seat Belts And Contributory Negligence, Frans F. Slatter

Dalhousie Law Journal

There are now thirty-six cases mentioned in the Canadian and English reports where it has been argued that the failure to wear a seat belt amounts to contributory negligence. I The defence was successfully made out in only ten of these cases, with damages being reduced by five per cent to thirty-three and a third per cent under the applicable contributory negligence statutes. 2 This volume of litigation would not provoke comment were it not for the division of judicial opinion and the confusion of judicial thinking to be found in these conflicting decisions. Even in England where it was …

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Note On Developments In Torts, Michael T. Hertz Jul 1976

Note On Developments In Torts, Michael T. Hertz

Dalhousie Law Journal

Between October 1974 and March 1975, the Nova Scotia Law News synopsized some forty Nova Scotia tort cases. This note will not attempt to duplicate that coverage, but rather to elaborate upon a few of the points raised in those cases and to emphasize a number of Supreme Court of Canada decisions which should have tangible effect upon our provincial tort law.

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Voluntary Assumption Of Risk And The Gratuitous Passenger, G. J. Skene Oct 1974

Voluntary Assumption Of Risk And The Gratuitous Passenger, G. J. Skene

Dalhousie Law Journal

In the so-called gratuitous passenger cases, the defence of voluntary assumption of risk, being a complete defence to negligence, has fallen into some disfavour with the courts in recent years, preference having been given to the more moderate defence of contributory negligence with its consequent apportionment of responsibility.' With one exception, 2 this has also proved to be the case in their dealing with a gratuitous passenger's rights against the drunken driver found to be grossly negligent under the motor vehicle legislation. a As a rule, the plea of volenti and that of contributory negligence go together, so that the …

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The Tort Of Seduction: Fathers And Daughters In Nineteenth Century Canada, Constance Backhouse Jun 1956

The Tort Of Seduction: Fathers And Daughters In Nineteenth Century Canada, Constance Backhouse

Dalhousie Law Journal

The tort of seduction, one of the most popular civil actions in nineteenthcentury Canada, was rooted in feudal notions that suggested that certain individuals could hold property interests in others. In the traditional actio per quod serviium amisit, a master was entitled to sue a tort-feasor who injured his servant for the loss of his or her services. The servant was treated as a species of chattel belonging to the master. As medieval master-servant relations began to dissolve in a modernizing economy, the tort was narrowed until it related almost exclusively to fathers and daughters. Fathers continued to bring actions …

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