Legal Research

SCC as Court of Last Resort Since 1949?

By Ted Tjaden

I thought I knew everything about legal research.

I don’t (although I suspect Simon, Simon and Angela do).

And to my surprise, it was Wikipedia that was my source for new information (in particular Wikipedia’s entry on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council).

We all know that civil appeals from the Supreme Court of Canada to the Judicial committee of the Privy Council were abolished in 1949.

In telling students this, I think I inevitably left the (mistaken) impression, by inference, that one did not need to worry about noting up Supreme Court of Canada cases after 1949 for judicial history (i.e., to see if the case was reversed on appeal) (but I am consistent in telling students that one should allows noteup all Supreme Court of Canada decisions from any period of time for judicial and academic commentary and to find “like” cases, which would have, in the situation that follows, have caught the mistake in any event).

However, would you note up the following SCC decision from 1958 for judicial history (i.e., to see if it had been appealed)? The case is:

Earl F. Wakefield Co. v. Oil City Petroleums (Leduc) Ltd., [1958] S.C.R. 361.

Likely not. Until now. If not, you would have missed [1960] A.C. 18 (where the SCC was affirmed on appeal).

It was the following statement in the Wikipedia entry that caught my eye:

Cases begun before 1949 were still allowed to appeal after 1949 and the final case to make it to the Council was not until 1959 with the case of Ponoka-Calmar Oils v. Wakefield, [1960] A.C. 18.

Thus, there are (likely) a number of Canadian cases out there – post 1949 – that were upheld or reversed by the Privy Council in England.

Thoughts? Or was I the only one missing this.

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on January 13, 2010 (boomark / email).