The Honourable Madam Justice Marie Deschamps of the Supreme Court of Canada spoke to law students at the University of Western Ontario on “Jumping at the Chance,” exploring her career path that took her to Canada’s highest court.

She spent some time with law students discussing these issues in further depth at a subsequent session.

The Honourable Madam Justice Marie Deschamps of the Supreme Court of Canada

JDSupra’s Fan Page on Facebook is featuring an older article on Law is Cool by Omar Ha-Redeye and Jacob Kaufman about the law and the Lord of the Rings as part of their “fun Tuesday.”

Robert Bexley, Editor in Chief of The Docket, the Georgia State University College of Law Newspaper, writes in:

First Published in October 2008 edition of The Docket, the Georgia State University College of Law Student Newspaper:

By: Robert Bexley

Frodo Baggins v. Sauron, (Mrdr. App. Ct. 2008).

The case at bar is one between the estate of Mr. Sauron, Plaintiff and Mr. Frodo Baggins, Defendant. Plaintiff brought suit alleging that Defendant had intentionally destroyed a valuable family heirloom of the decedent. The trial court denied demurrer for Defendant, and the jury awarded Plaintiff $200,000 in nominal and punitive damages. Defendant appealed, stating trial court error in denying demurrer.
The facts go back 650 years. Mr. Smeagol Gollum, a hermit and schizophrenic, misplaced his gold ring. While spelunking in a cave, Bilbo Baggins, Appellant/Defendant’s uncle, found the ring.
Upon returning home, Mr. Baggins kept the ring safe and on his nephew’s eleventy-first birthday, conveyed the ring to him. Appellant, Frodo Baggins, learned that the ring in fact belonged to Mr. Sauron of Golgoroth and instead of returning the ring, Appellant was told by his counsel, Mr. Gandalf Mithrandir, Esq., to destroy it in Mount Doom. The facts of the trial court are unclear as to why this course of action was necessary.
Appellant snuck into Mordor and ascended Mount Doom. Upon reaching the summit, however, Mr. Gollum approached Appellant insisting upon the return of the ring. Appellant refused and hit Mr. Gollum on the head. Immediately before throwing the ring into the fiery depths of Mount Doom, Appellant had a change of heart and put on the ring so he could safely return it to Mr. Sauron. Mr. Gollum awoke furious and bit off the finger of Appellant on which the ring was placed. Appellant then pushed Mr. Gollum over a cliff into molten lava, destroying the ring, Mr. Gollum, and oddly enough, Mr. Sauron.
Despite the horrors of Appellant’s actions, the case at bar is only concerned with the destruction of Plaintiff/Respondent’s property.
There is a doctrine in Torts that justifies the actions of a person, when acting in good faith; he may destroy another’s property in the best interest of the community as long as the necessity is clearly shown. In Surroco v. Geary, it was necessary to raze a house in order to save adjoining homes and thus the city from an oncoming blaze. The court found the defendant not liable for destroying the plaintiff’s home because he was acting in the public interest, even by good faith mistake.
Mr. Baggins was under the impression that he was protecting the public interest by destroying the so-called “One Ring to Rule Them All.” We hold that pushing an ancient malnourished lunatic into magma to destroy a ring is conduct reasonably necessary to protect all of humanity. As such, we find that the trial court erred by denying Appellant’s demurrer. We reverse the trial court’s ruling and hold Appellant not liable for damages to Respondent’s property.

(omitted, Saruman, J., dissenting.)

Omar Ha-Redeye completed a training session at the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) on the Essentials of Governance for Public Sector Boards.

The session was conducted by Jim Mackay of the Berkley Consulting Group and Anne Corbett of Borden, Ladner, Gervais LLP.

An overview of the public sector landscape was provided, as well as the role that a board plays in an organization.  The legal obligations and duties of directors were covered, as well as how to effectively conduct board meetings and play a director role.

The training also included several role-playing scenarios, and an expert panel featuring: Linda Lamereux, a lawyer sitting on the Health Services and Appeal Review Board and the Health Professions Appeal & Review Board; John Bell, a partner at Shibley Righton LLP with considerable board experience in the public sector; and Helen Hayward, who currently sits on the Board of Governors for Seneca College.

UWO Law hosted the 2009 BLG Client Counselling Competition. The winners this year were Andrea Yau and Jesse Mighton.

Finalists included Cassandra Tarrataca and Ryan Venables, Adam Somogyi and Mike Lickver, Kathryn Shani and Brittany Taylor and Ronald Fichter and Katie Sokol.

Omar Ha-Redeye played a client in the competition, which he won in 2007.

Mark Scrimshire, one of the organizers at Health Camp, thinks the customers are the ones that count in healthcare too:

Brilliant ad by LewisPr on the changing nature of communications, and the need for boardrooms to learn new “social skills.”

Cameron MacLean and Chanakya Sethi of Osgoode Hall’s The Court mention a post about Justice Iacabucci and the legacy of residential schools:

Iacobucci on Historical Redress
“If anything is to be done with the Indian, we must catch him very young,” wrote N.F. Davin in an 1879 report commissioned by the Canadian federal government with the end of emulating the system of American Industrial Schools for natives. Unfortunately, the Canadian government followed Davin’s wretched advice. Slaw’s Omar Ha-Redeye considers the consequences, and their ongoing resolution, in context of a recent speech given by former Supreme Court of Canada Justice Frank Iacobucci…

Prof. Jeremy Waldron of NYU Law spoke at UWO Law on Nov. 12 and 13.

First, he spoke at the 2009 Coxford Lecture, “Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment: The Words Themselves”.  Kamila Pizon describes the talk on the school’s website.

On Nov. 13, he spoke to law students in a public law class on “The Core of the Case Against Judicial Review.”

James Yap of Osgoode Hall can’t figure it out. Maybe you can lend a hand.

Omar Ha-Redeye participated in the Cherniak Cup, UWO Law’s trial advocacy competition.