New Court Notices

August 19, 2021 – Noting of Default where service is by registered or certified mail under Queen’s Bench Rule 16.03(4)(A)

Due to changes with Canada Post no longer obtaining signatures on registered mail “the Registrar will accept requisitions to note default on a statement of claim where the other requirements to note default are met but the statement of claim was served outside of six months after it was issued and the plaintiff files satisfactory affidavit evidence.”

Notice – Adjustment to Current Scheduling Protocols September 7, 2021 until further notice (August 20, 2021)

In an effort to further the “cautious approach in the transition to further normalization of Court of Queen’s Bench hearings … the court will be further enhancing its in-person judicial service commencing with the fall term on Tuesday, September 7, 2021, until further notice.”

A list of full protocols is provided in the notice.

See here for previous Notices and Practice Directions.

New Proclamations

The Manitoba Government has proclaimed the following two acts to be in force. Two news releases highlight the new changes to access to locked-in pensions, and compensation for juries.

Province Creates a Strong Pension Framework that Guarantees Protected, Secure and Stable Retirement Income for Manitobans” August 17, 2021
“Amendments to the Pension Benefits Act (PBA) through bill 8 and accompanying regulations will modernize the legislation and create a framework that protects individuals in times of financial hardship and provides greater and easier access to locked-in funds…”

The Pension Benefits Amendment Act (whole Act except subsection 10(1), section 11 and clause 17(a))

Proclamation

Province Proclaims Legislation that Increases Juror Diversity, Allows Increase in Juror Pay” August 17, 2021
“As part of the amendments to the Jury Act, jurors will be paid for their attendance starting on the first day of a jury trial. Changes to the jury regulation under the act increase jurors’ compensation to $80 per day.”

The Court Practice and Administration Act (Various Acts Amended) (Part 6)

Proclamation

Optimize Your Research Skills with vLex and Irwin Law

Legal Research with vLex and Irwin Law Webinar

Tuesday, September 28, 2021
12:00 p.m.—1:00 p.m.

Irwin Law’s comprehensive Essentials of Canadian Law series is moving from desLibris onto the vLex platform.

Learn how to incorporate these texts, vLex and the AI assistant Vincent into your legal research with this free webinar.

Eligible for 1 hour of CPD

Email library@lawsociety.mb.ca to register.

You will need to have Zoom installed on your device. Zoom link will be sent the day before the webinar.

Locating Hard-to-Find Sentencing Decisions

Guest post by Melanie R. Bueckert, Legal Research Counsel – Manitoba Court of Appeal

Rangefindr is another one of the excellent research resources available to members of the Law Society of Manitoba through the Member Portal

Rangefindr logo

While Rangefindr is extremely helpful for all kinds of criminal sentencing research, it is particularly useful when trying to locate cases that do not lend themselves to keyword searching.  For instance, imagine trying to find cases where a lawyer or a police officer is the accused person.  It would be very difficult to construct a keyword search to locate only those cases, without bringing up irrelevant results that also involved lawyers or police officers in other capacities.  Using Rangefindr, such cases can be identified with just a few clicks.

Instead of using Google-style keyword searching, Rangefindr is a filtering service.  To find cases where lawyers were sentenced, one can simply click on the “Accused” category at the top left-hand side of the Rangefindr query page. 

rangefindr accused filter

Scrolling down through the alphabetical list of filters (also called “tags”), clicking “Lawyer” reveals 63 cases in the Rangefindr database.  As soon as the filter is applied, the dispositions in the 63 cases are displayed on the right-hand side of the screen.  Apparently the 63 cases involved 4 absolute discharges, 3 conditional discharges, 10 conditional sentences, 2 intermittent sentences, 2 fines, 2 periods of probation and 40 imprisonments.

table of sentencing decisions

  By clicking “Show Durations”, the display on the right toggles to show a breakdown of the 40 prison sentences.  Clicking “View Cases” brings up the results page, which defaults to showing all 63 cases in reverse chronological order. 

table of imprisonment duration

The cases can also be sorted by “Highest Punishment”, “Lowest Punishment”, “Judge” and “Level of Court”. 

sorting options

Clicking “Tags Associated with this Case” expands the brief case summary to show all of the filters that are associated with the case. 

tags associated with case

Jurisdictional filters can be added by clicking “Edit Search” and choosing the desired jurisdiction(s) under the “Jurisdiction” category on the left-hand side of the screen.  Apparently there are 8 such cases from Manitoba in Rangefindr’s database.

jurisdiction options

  Rangefindr provides links to all of the case results in CanLII (which is where it draws its data from).  These links can be accessed for individual cases by clicking on “Download This Case” in the top-right corner.

Though the Rangefindr database is limited in scope (it generally includes appellate cases since 2000 and trial decisions from 2010 onward), it can help researchers quickly identify pertinent cases, particularly when they involve unique factual elements.  In case you are wondering, Rangefindr’s filters are applied by human editors who go through a rigorous training process. 

To learn more about using Rangefindr, check out the short video available at https://app.rangefindr.ca/help or their Getting Started guide.  For additional Rangefindr search tips, see https://tips.slaw.ca/2017/research/rangefindr-youre-doing-it-wrong/

Please note: The library will be closing early on Friday, December 13th at 11:00AM for a special event.  Regular library service will resume Monday, December 16th at 8:30AM.