Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2007 19:03

From: David Cheifetz

Subject: Causation 2008 - June 2008, Toronto

Dear Colleagues:

This is formal announcement about something some of you already know about.

The Canadian Bar Association (National Civil Litigation Section) has now formally given the green light for "Proving Causation In Litigation 2008", a CLE symposium aimed at the practising portion of the profession. It'll take place in beautiful, downtown, Toronto, Canada, on either Friday June 6 or Friday June 13, 2008. That exact day will be set, soon.

For those who haven't been on the message loop, the program is supposed to explain to Canadian practitioners and judges the current state of Canadian jurisprudence on the meaning of causation - both factual and "proximate" - in common law, and causality in Québec civil law, in light of recent case law in the Supreme Court of Canada and subsequent cases in the courts of the provinces and territories. It's a full day program with panel discussions interspersed between lectures.

The afternoon session will include a mock Supreme Court of Canada appeal at which Snell v Farrell Reimagined (with some twists) will be reargued. The "SCC" panel, all things being equal, will be Cory J., Gonthier J, and Major J. The conference moderators, all things being equal, will be two judges whose surnames will suffice: Linden JA and Baudouin JA.

Presenting faculty, currently, are:

Lewis Klar
John Swan
Richard Wright
Patrice Deslauriers
Stephen Pitel
Louise Belanger-Hardy
Russ Brown
Craig Jones
Margaret Hall
Lara Khoury
Lynda Collins
Robert-Jean Chénier
David Cheifetz  

Justices Linden and Baudouin (should they choose to)

Other faculty (panelists or other duties) includes

Robert Solomon
Mitchell McInnes
Jason Neyers
Erika Chamberlain
Andrew Botterell
George McAllister
Peter Willcock
Vaughan Black
Earl Cherniak (Counsel for Dr. Farrell)
Jérôme Choquette (Counsel for Snell)
Robert Zarnett (Counsel for Hospital/Nurse)

More news will follow about this end of things. Those who of you who want to be on the mailing list, please let me know off-list.

Paraphrasing Stephen Pitel wrote to me, the presentations and discussion at the Friday conference are to be "informative in nature, explaining the current state of the law and commenting on some main issues" rather than a chance to "for people to present academic papers advancing the thinking on these topics". Is there sufficient interest - i.e. people inclined to (1) attend and (2) present the "academic papers" - that I should now start trying to arrange a second day for the conference? It seems to me that the developments in the UK (Fairchild-Barker, Holtby-Allen), Canada (Resurfice), Australia (the Ipp Committee, legislation, case law), the US (the proposals in the Restatement (3rd) Torts: Liability for Physical and Emotional Harm) provides a wealth of subject matter.

Some of you have already told me of your interest. Would those who haven't, and who might be, please let me know on-list or off-list as you prefer.

Cheers,
David Cheifetz

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