From: Yehuda Adar <yadar.law@gmail.com>
To: Adam Kramer KC <akramer@3vb.com>
CC: obligations <obligations@uwo.ca>
Date: 06/12/2022 18:24:00 UTC
Subject: Re: Remembering Stephen Smith
I agree wholeheartedly. As brilliant a scholar as Steve had been, so was he modest - personally and professionally. I adored the fact that his most original claims often came with a tidbit of irony and humor, to remind us that, after all, we are dealing with humans that, ultimately, must be treated no different than unruly children. For Steve this meant that the goal of formulating clear-cut rules for regulating private law remedies is, probably, unattainable. I recall a beautiful closing paragraph in one of his articles that captures this attitude, with a metaphor worth reciting. Please join me in reading this concluding paragraph in remembrance of Steve:

"Imagine that one day a boy comes to his mother with a complaint. His older brother, the boy says, had agreed to help him with his homework, but then reneged on the promise. The mother investigates and confirms the story. The boy asks his mother to do something. As might be expected, the brothers are not on the best of terms at this point. The mother’s response is to order the older brother to find his old school notes and give them to his younger brother. The mother also orders the older brother to do the dishes (which had been the younger brother’s responsibility). If we were to apply the rubber-stamp theory to this story, we would have to conclude that the older brother had no duty to help his younger brother with his homework. His only duty was to hand over his old school notes and do the dishes. Needless to say, this is not the most natural explanation. The more natural explanation—and the explanation that any parent would themselves give—is that the older brother indeed had an obligation to help his younger brother with his homework. The only reason the mother did not order that the promise be performed is that had she done so the brothers would almost certainly have been back before her, fresh complaints in hand, within minutes. Specific performance was impractical, so the mother ordered what seemed to her a close substitute. It is possible that common law courts operate on different principles. This essay has argued that they do not."  


Be Steve's memory blessed, and his heritage remembered.

Yehuda Adar (University of Haifa, Israel)

On Mon, Dec 5, 2022 at 11:57 PM Adam Kramer KC <akramer@3vb.com> wrote:

I only just saw this news. Extremely sad. Steve’s supervision of me during my Master’s was ridiculously influential in hindsight, and he remained a great friend and model in all things ever since.

Adam

 

 

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From: Jason Neyers <jneyers@uwo.ca>
Date: Sunday, 4 December 2022 at 14:04
To: "obligations@uwo.ca" <obligations@uwo.ca>
Subject: ODG: Remembering Stephen Smith

 

Dear Colleagues:

I share two more tributes to our dear friend and colleague Stephen Smith. The first from Dean Robert Leckey of McGill: https://www.mcgill.ca/law/channels/news/remembering-professor-stephen-smith-1958-2022-344015

 

The second his obituary for the Globe and Mail:  https://www.legacy.com/ca/obituaries/theglobeandmail/name/stephen-smith-obituary?pid=203343668

 

Sincerely,

 

 

esig-law

Jason Neyers
Professor of Law
Faculty of Law
Western University
Law Building Rm 26
e. jneyers@uwo.ca
t. 519.661.2111 (x88435)

 

 

 

 

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--



Dr. Yehuda Adar

Senior Lecturer in Private Law

University of Haifa Faculty of Law

Mount Carmel, Haifa

31905 ISRAEL

Tel: +972-4-8288866

You can access my work at:

https://ssrn.com/author=410076

https://haifa.academia.edu/YehudaAdar

https://works.bepress.com/yehuda_adar/