Legal Research

Confusion over Names

By John Swan

On the News Release site on the Supreme Court of Canada?s site, http://scc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/news_release/2008/08-03-20.3/08-03-20.3.html, i.e., for 20 March, 2008, there is a note that the application for leave to appeal in III Canada Acquisition Company, et al. v. Ernst & Young Inc. was dismissed. (I saw the case mentioned in Eugene Meehan?s weekly letter of that date and wanted to track it down.) The case is stated to be on appeal from the Ontario Court of Appeal.

It is, in fact, impossible to find the reasons for judgment of the Court of Appeal, using this style of cause, on either the Court’s own website (even when you know the date of the decision) or through CanLII?or, for that matter QL or WestLaw. The reasons for judgment can be found on CanLII by a search under Ivaco Inc., the insolvent corporation. The Court of Appeal?s reasons for judgment (from which the application was made), dismissing an application for leave to appeal to it, can be found under Re Ivaco Inc. (2007 ONCA 746). If all you have is ?Ivaco?, you have to go through the 19 decisions made in the course of winding up the corporation.

To make matters worse, if you use the ?Reflex Record? on the Court of Appeal?s page, you get, not the dismissal of application of the leave to appeal, but a reference to ?a related decision?, Superintendent of Financial Services v. National Bank of Canada, Informal Committee of Noteholders and Ernst & Young Inc., in it’s [sic] capacity as Court-Appointed Monitor, Qit-Fer et Titane Inc. and Bank of Nova Scotia, 2007 CanLII 15978 (S.C.C.) where leave to appeal another decision was given!

The Reflex Record also discloses a decision, Ivaco Inc. v. III Canada Acquisition Co., 2005 CanLII 29656 (ON S.C.), which decision was appealed to the Court of Appeal and became 2007 ONCA 746, losing the respondent?s name in the process.

Am I alone in being frustrated by the lack of consistency in the naming of the cases or, to use the former term, the styles of cause? Does any one know how this confusion is created or have an idea how to deal with it?

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on March 27, 2008 (boomark / email).