BC COVID rule challenges dismissed, banishment and double jeopardy, and challenging a civil jury notice
This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: Five different legal challenges to COVID-19 restrictions are all dismissed on the same day. Several of the people who launched legal challenges failed to avail themselves of internal legislative review mechanisms before commencing challenges in court. Before commencing a judicial review, it’s a requirement that someone exhaust legislative avenues to appeal an administrative decision. Also, on the show, an indigenous man who was sentence...
15 Sep 202222min
Promissory estoppel a farm and a $90,000 award for defamatory Google and Yelp reviews
This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: Promissory estoppel is an equitable doctrine that can protect a claimant’s reasonable reliance on another person’s word. It is intended to avoid unfairness by enforcing promises. In a case discussed on the show, a judge needed to determine if either promissory estoppel or another equitable doctrine called unjust enrichment should result in a farm being given to a man who had worked on it for many years with the expectation that he would ...
2 Sep 202223min
Trespass damages, Caveat Emptor for a house purchase and Charter breach = reduced sentence
This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: When someone trespasses on property by building or installing something on it without permission, damages can be awarded. The amount of such an award will depend on the circumstances: a)nominal damages if the owner had not proven any actual loss b)actual damages suffered by the owner; or c)damages equal to a sum that should reasonably be paid by the trespasser for the use of the land. In the appeal discussed on the show, a neighbour was...
25 Aug 202223min
The Liquor Distribution Act monopoly and termination vs abandoning a job
This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: The British Columbia General Employee Union is picketing government liquor distribution centers. The explanation for this strategic choice can be found in the Liquor Distribution Act, which is the legal basis for how alcohol is sold in British Columbia. The Liquor Distribution Act creates a government monopoly over alcohol distribution in the province. The legal scheme in the act starts from the proposition that the government acquires o...
18 Aug 202222min
Different test for best interest of indigenous children, public interest standing and nuisance bamboo
The week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: When children are believed to be at risk of harm in British Columbia, they can be apprehended by the director of the Ministry of Children and Families and placed with another family member or into foster care. Pursuant to the Child, Family and Community Service Act, a judge would then need to determine what was in the best interest of the child. This act sets out a list of factors a judge must consider when deciding what’s in the best int...
11 Aug 202221min
No condom = no consent, when lawyers can't quit, and unjust enrichment
This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: Section 273.1(1) of the Criminal Code specifies that a person’s voluntary agreement to “engage in the sexual activity in question” is required. Even where there is consent to sexual activity, it can be legally ineffective in various circumstances, including where the consent is obtained by force, the exercise of authority or fraud. In 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada decided on a case where an accused secretly sabotaged condoms by pok...
4 Aug 202221min
Murder during unlawful confinement, detention and right to a lawyer
This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: In Canada, murder can be either first or second degree. A conviction for either kind of murder results in a mandatory life sentence. With first-degree murder, however, a person must wait 25 years before they can even ask for parole. For second-degree, the judge can decide how long someone would need to wait before being allowed to ask for parole, from 10 to 25 years. The most common murder can become first-degree is when the murder is pla...
28 Juli 202223min
Medicare Protection Act constitutional, sentencing for contempt and drugs on appeal
This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: The British Columbia Medicare Protection Act purports attempts to protect Medicare by prohibiting any doctor from charging any more than what Medicare pays for any service that it covers and effectively prohibiting people from purchasing private insurance for any of these services. These market interventions, combined with insufficient funding for Medicare, have resulted in the rationing of the services that are available by requiring pe...
21 Juli 202222min
