Hi all.  If a test question asks you to explain or refer to any relevant cases, you do not need to recite a long description of the case.  However, you should be able to show that you know what happened in the case, why it is relevant to your answer, and what the outcome or decision in the case was.

For example, if you were explaining the case Seneca College v. Bhaduaria, which we looked in the second case, you would want to say something like this.

“In Bhandauria v. Seneca College, the worker had been denied jobs at Seneca College and she believed it was due to her ethnicity.  She sued the College and argued that she had been discriminated against.  The Supreme Court ruled that there was no “tort”, or legal basis under the common law to sue for discrimination in the formation of a contract.  The Court said that discrimination in employment contracts has to be dealt with by filing a human rights complaint under the Human Rights Code, not by filing a lawsuit in a common law court.”

Presumably, if you were explaining this case, it would be because you think it helps explain your answer to the question on the test.  Therefore, you should have a sentence or two explaining why the decision you just described supports your answer.  For example, if the test question gave you a fact scenario that explained that an employee had sued her employer for discrimination on the basis of sex in a lawsuit filed in a court, and you were asked to advise the employer on how to respond to the lawsuit, you might say something like this:

“Therefore, I would advise the employer to argue in its defence that the court should dismiss (throw out) the lawsuit on the basis of the ruling in Bhadauria.”

That would be a very good answer.  The key is to show us that you recognize what case(s) are relevant to the legal problem you are considering, and that you understand basically what happened in the case, and how it helps answer the problem you are given.

Hopes that helps.  David

Hello.  As I have posted earlier, the information for the midterm is as follows:

Date:  Monday February 13th

Time:  7 – 9 p.m

Place:  Curtis Lecture Hall G

If you are writing from a location out of town, please make your arrangements with the Distance Education office:  disted@yorku.ca.  I am not involved in making those arrangements personally.  As noted on the outline, there is no alternate sitting for this midterm.  If you have a direct conflict (another test at the same time, please let me know).

Format

The midterm will have 10 multiple choice questions, and 5 Short Answer questions worth 10 marks each.  Here are sample questions of each type:

Sample Multiple Choice Question:

Thanks to one of your classmate Jaawwad for letting me know about the piece in Metro describing an interesting case called Braiden v. La-Z-Boy Canada. The first part of the case is about whether  sales person on commission at La-Z-Boy is an employee or an independent contractor, which is an issue we discussed in the last lecture.  The second part of the case is interesting too, which deals with the questions of whether a written contract entered into years after an employee begins work is enforceable.  This is an issue about “consideration”, which is dealt with in this week’s lecture.  If you have time, have a read of the Braiden decision.  I will probably do a blog entry on it on my main blog sometime soon, and I will let you know when I do.

Cheers, David

Hello everyone,

York has set the midterm time and place.  It is the date and time that I indicated was the most likely on the outline. Here are the details:

Date:  Monday February 13th

Time:  7 – 9 p.m

Place:  Curtis Lecture Hall G

If you are writing from a location out of town, please make your arrangements with the Distance Education office:  disted@yorku.ca.  I am not involved in making those arrangements personally.  As noted on the outline, there is no alternate sitting for this midterm.  If you have a direct conflict (another test at the same time, please let me know).

Thanks, David

The course is set up by topic, rather than specific lecture. Some topics cover two or more lectures. On the link called “The Lectures (2012)” at the top of the blog, I have included a brief description of what material the lecture will cover, so you will want to do the reading that covers that material. But I will also explain at the end of each week’s blog entry what the next lecture will cover, as I did last week.

In short, we will cover everything on the outline. You should try to read as much as you can of the assigned topic for the week as you can. If you get ahead of the lecture, you will have less to read next time.