Law Times

Page 16 April 28, 2014 • lAw Times www.lawtimesnews.com CONCERT FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES In honour of the Canadian Civil Lib- erties Association's 50th anniversary, Canadian Artists for Civil Liberties will throw a concert on May 3. e CCLA promises it will be a night of music, dance, and spoken word perfor- mance celebrating the organization and the "freedoms it has worked so tirelessly to promote and defend." "We're very excited about this concert," said Sukanya Pillay, general counsel of the CCLA. "You can't separate the arts from civil liberties advocacy. Musicians, writers, artists have always been at the forefront of civil liberties cam- paigns across the world and in Canada — in fact, CCLA has always had strong representatives of the arts on our board — we are grateful to Na- than Lawr and the artists he has brought together to celebrate the 50th anniversary of CCLA." e concert will take place at Trinity St. Paul's United Church at 427 Bloor St. W. in Toronto at 7 p.m. JUROR K-9 SUMMONED FOR DUTY BRIDGETON, N.J. — With jurors hard to find, it seems the courts are turning to dogs for jury duty. But according to Reuters, court officials in New Jersey's Cumberland County suspect a com- puter glitch is likely to blame for a summons that called a German Shepherd to report for jury duty. Barrett Griner IV, of Bridgeton, said he opened a jury summons addressed to IV Griner, the name of his five-year-old dog. "It was just funny," he said. "I got mail for my dog." e court didn't actually request that a dog serve on a jury, said Mark Sprock, the local trial court administrator. He said a computer prob- ably misread Griner's numerical suffix IV as his first name. "It probably picked up that IV, which is usually aer his name, from one of the databases and put it into his first name slot in the jury system," said Sprock. Typically, someone getting such an erroneous jury summons can call the court offices to fix the error, he said. Griner, 40, who works as a treatment plant op- erator at the local water department, said he hasn't yet made that call. "I hope that the judge finds it kind of humor- ous," he said. "at's all I need is to have the local county and judge think I'm making a mockery of his courtroom." STATE LEGALIZES ADULTERY CONCORD, N.H. — e relatively liberal New England state of New Hampshire is no longer part of the diminishing club of jurisdictions that out- law adultery. According to Reuters, New Hampshire law- makers have voted to scrap an ancient law that makes cheating on your spouse a criminal offence in the state whose motto is "Live free or die." Gov. Maggie Hassan will likely sign the bill into law, making adultery legal in the Granite State for the first time in hundreds of years. Back in 1791, being unfaithful in New Hamp- shire earned you an hour of public embarrass- ment on the gallows, as many as 39 lashes, a one- year prison sentence, and a big fine. at punishment has gradually ratcheted down to an unenforced fine, but lawmakers said even that was too much. More than 20 states still have laws against adul- tery and some, including Michigan and Wiscon- sin, still consider it a felony offence. CHOCOLATE WEAPON DISRUPTS PLANE HONG KONG — With crackdowns on what you can take on a plane, hijackers are getting desperate. A passenger on board a Hong Kong-bound Cathay Pacific flight, armed only with a To- blerone chocolate bar, demanded the plane fly to Sochi so he could watch the Winter Olym- pics, a court heard. Antti Oskari Manselius, 23, from Finland, also made a false bomb threat on the Feb. 14 flight from Amsterdam and said he was robbing the plane, the South China Morning Post reported. Manselius pleaded not guilty to disorderly conduct and giving false information about a bomb when he appeared in court, the Post said. He said he was trying to entertain the other pas- sengers and was making "fun and jokes." Two flight attendants told the court that they saw Manselius walking towards the cockpit. He had two economy-class blankets wrapped around his head and was wearing another like a cape. He held the Toblerone chocolate bar "like a sword," the newspaper said, quoting one of the attendants. "He said, 'I am robbing the plane now. I want to see the Olympics in Sochi and I need to get off the plane now,'" the newspaper quoted attendant Leung Hiu-lun as telling the court. Authorities arrested Manselius in Hong Kong. LT The title insurer that puts you front row, centre Putting the legal community front and centre has made us the #1 choice with Canadian lawyers for over a decade. Stewart Title does not support programs that reduce or eliminate the lawyer's role in real estate transactions. For more information call (888) 667-5151 or visit www.stewart.ca. Untitled-2 1 7/19/11 12:31:45 PM u Bizarre Briefs By Viola James u The InsIde story MCMILLAN LAWYER JOINS OSLERS Former McMillan LLP finan- cial services lawyer Chris Ben- nett has joined Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP. Bennett, whose expertise is complex project financing, joined the firm as a partner. "Chris' experience reflects the exponential growth and impor- tance of infrastructure require- ments by all levels of govern- ment as they seek out new mod- els of procuring and financing large-scale projects that address needs in social infrastructure, transportation, and energy," said Stephen Clark, chairman of fi- nancial services at Oslers. He added: "Canada has be- come a leading jurisdiction in terms of both deal flow and suc- cessful implementation of these models, and we are very pleased he is contributing his exper- tise to clients of our top-ranked teams in infrastructure, energy, and financial services." STUDY QUESTIONS CY-PRÈS AWARDS Courts are resorting to cy- près awards without scruti- nizing lawyers' attempts to locate class members, a major study of Canadian class action settlements has found. is can result in access to justice being "turned on its head," according to author Jasminka Kalajdzic, an associate profes- sor at the University of Wind- sor Faculty of Law. Cy-près awards allow for the transfer of class action settlement money to charities when there's no practical way of distribut- ing all of the funds to individual plaintiffs. "Courts have adopted cy- près as a second best alternative to direct compensation of class members, and have done so with only occasional academic scru- tiny and virtually no legislative guidance," said a dra paper by Kalajdzic published last week. Kalajdzic calls her study "the most comprehensive collection of information regarding the na- ture and extent of cy-près use in Canada." e study found no evidence in the 65 class actions that featured cy-près awards from 2001-12 that courts had seriously questioned parties' claims the money couldn't go directly to class members. LCO REPORTS AVAILABLE IN FRENCH e Law Commission of On- tario says it has collaborated with the Association des ju- rists d'expression française de l'Ontario to make all of its publications available in French for users. Jurisource.ca is a virtual legal library for justice professionals who work with French-language communities. "All LCO publications are currently available in this virtual library equipped with a powerful search engine, allowing access to thousands of resources such as legislation, judgments, studies, research papers, precedents and glossaries," the law commission announced. LT Sukanya Pillay "I'll vouch for him."

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