The University of British Columbia

LAW 270B-003

2012 CIVIL LITIGATION

5 January to 5 April 2012
(Thursday evenings 17:30 – 20:30)

ANDREW NATHANSON, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP
(anathanson@fasken.com)
&
DAVID CRERAR, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP
(dcrerar@blg.com)

Objectives

This course has the following objectives:

• Introduce the fundamentals of civil procedure and familiarize students with the structure of a civil action.
• Provide a theoretical framework for the rules of procedure and identify the values and policies on which the rules are based.
• Place these rules in a practical context to encourage future practitioners to wield them in a responsible, strategic, and cost-effective manner.

Course Outline (and Bibliography)

• REVISED 2012 Course Outline

Class Materials

The course materials will consist of the following:

1.     Crerar / Nathanson, Civil Procedure Casebook 2012 (the "Casebook").

2.      Janet Walker, et al., The Civil Litigation Process: Cases and Materials, 7th ed. (Toronto: Emond Montgomery Publications Ltd.) ("Walker") (formerly "Watson").

3.    Supreme Court Civil Rules. The new Supeme Court Civil Rules took effect on July 1, 2010. We will teach the new Rules. They can be found in the following sources (and you may use any of the sources):

• Bouck, Dillon, and Turriff, British Columbia Annual Practice 2012 (Canada Law Book Inc.) (the "White Book")
• Seckel & MacInnis, Supreme Court Rules Annotated 2012 (Carswell) (the "Black Book")
• The new Rules are also available online at: http://www.bclaws.ca/EPLibraries/bclaws_new/document/ID/freeside/168_2009_01.
• A concordance of the old and new rules is found here: http://www.ag.gov.bc.ca/new-rules/pdfs/civil-rules-concordance.pdf.

The former rules are not required reading but are, however, very useful for understanding the new Rules, and are the rules on which all of the case law in this course are based. We will frequently refer to the former rules. Past editions of the White Book and the Black Book will be useful in this regard.
We may at times hand out or refer to recent judgments or other supplementary readings.

Evaluation

The evaluation method in this course will be by:

(a)     10%:  based on two simple and brief pass-fail assignments: a pleadings drafting exercise (3-4 pages) and a report on an independent visit (1 page) to the British Columbia Supreme Court Civil Chambers (at any courthouse); and

(b)     90% final examination set during the Faculty examination period.

As per the Faculty’s policy "Mark Deduction For Late Assignments", a late penalty of 1 mark per day will be assessed.

• REVISED Pass-Fail Assignments & Comments on Pleadings Exercise
• Sample Pass-Fail Assignments: Chambers Visits
• Sample Notice of Claim: Tort: T. Woods

Past Examinations

• 2004
• 2005
• 2006
• 2007
• 2007 deferred
• 2008
• 2009
• 2009 deferred
• 2010
• 2011

Handouts and Additional Readings

• Kendall v. Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada (discoveries)
• Canadian Federation of Students v. Simon Fraser Student Society (pleadings)
• Martin v. Lavigne and Neufeld (costs)
• Tai v. Lam (document discovery)
• Life Cycle of an Action in British Columbia Supreme Court
• Giles & Herbst, Limitation of actions in tort, The Advocate 
• AGBC Green Paper on Reforming British Columbia's Limitation Act
• Dos Santos v. Sun Life Assurance Co. of Canada (privilege)
• Mark D. Andrews, QC, Andrew I. Nathanson, and Mark Pontin, Privilege in Practice
• David Crerar, "How to lose your own Rule 18A Summary Trial"
• Judge Savage, re Icahn Partners LP v. Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., 11-01
• DM_VAN-#8024566-v1-LGE_Presentation_(PowerPoint File as PDF - UBC_version)
• Examples of Petitions under statutes
• Week 5: Pleadings & Parties: Lax Kw'alaams (2011 SCC)
• Week 7 Optional reading: Nwachukwu v. Ferreira, 2011 BCSC 1755

Email

• January 11, 2012
• January 12, 2012
• January 18, 2012
• January 24, 2012