Browsing by Author "Brierton, Thomas"
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- ItemOpen AccessHarassment as a New Workplace Safety Issue(Centre for Public Legal Education Alberta (CPLEA), 2018-01-05) Bowal, Peter; Brierton, Thomas
- ItemOpen AccessRestrictive Covenants in Employment(Legal Resource Centre of Alberta Ltd. (LRC), 2009) Bowal, Peter; Brierton, ThomasThe restrictive covenant must be clear in its restrictions. Given the public policy concern, the courts do not start out favourably disposed to these clauses, and if they are ambiguous, the courts may be inclined to rule them unenforceable. One common example is the use of the word "radius" in the context that the employee is not to work within the radius of X kilometres. A radius requires an identifiable point from which to "radiate" the territory. This might be a local landmark or the front door of the employer. The corporate limits of a large municipality are not a finite point from which to draw a radius. The reasonableness of activity, time, or geographic restrictions cannot be determined if they are ambiguous. An ambiguous restrictive covenant is, on its face, unreasonable and unenforceable. The question was then whether the Court could interpret it in such as way to render it reasonable. The Supreme Court of Canada said that "notional severance," reading down a clause to make it legal and enforceable, is inappropriate to cure an ambiguous restrictive covenant. Courts will not simply rewrite a covenant to what it subjectively considers reasonable, or employers would draft overly broad restrictive covenants and invite the court to sever any unreasonable parts or read down the covenant to what is reasonable. The Supreme Court said this would alter the risks assumed by the parties and increase the chances that employees will face unreasonable restrictions. The Court also considered "blue.pencil severance" which involves deleting part of the clause. The expression came from a 1920 English case which said, "the part severed can be removed by running a blue pencil through it." In Shafron, could the word "Metropolitan" be simply deleted? The Court said that "Metropolitan," while technically meaningless here, was a part of the bargain the parties struck going to the essence of this restriction, and it could not be removed in this way. Nor could the doctrine of rectification be invoked to rewrite the bargain between the parties. In the result, the whole restrictive covenant was struck out as unenforceable because of the ambiguity created by the generic word "Metropolitan."
- ItemOpen AccessStinchcombe and Crown Disclosure of Criminal Evidence(Centre for Public Legal Education Alberta (CPLEA), 2017-11-01) Bowal, Peter; Brierton, Thomas
- ItemOpen AccessWhat’s in a Word: Olympic(Legal Resource Centre of Alberta Ltd. (LRC), 2010) Bowal, Peter; Brierton, ThomasMarketing the Olympic brand has been controversial. Some say the Olympic Games are now like all other large over-commercialized sport events. Others say that local and national governments invest and risk much in competing for and hosting the Games. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) spurned corporate sponsorship until about 40 years ago. But the modern Olympics are expensive. The arrival of television and lucrative advertising markets opened the field to international sponsors seeking to associate themselves with the upbeat Olympic brand. The 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles generated a record surplus of U.S.$225 million by selling exclusive sponsorship rights. The IOC moved in to develop the Olympic brand and control these international sponsorships with The Olympic Program (TOP) in 1985. TOP sponsorship costs U.S.$50 million for four years. International and domestic tiers of Olympic sponsorship have developed. The IOC negotiates and manages broadcast rights and the TOP worldwide sponsorship program. It distributes most of this marketing revenue, up to a $1 billion per year, to national organizations in its network to support staging the Games and promoting sport generally. The IOC assigns to the various National (Canadian Olympic Association) and Local Organizing Committees (VANOC) rights to exploit the symbols, the "Olympic" name and overall brand in order to sell domestic sponsorship, partnership and licensing within the host country. The economic value of the effort depends on how strictly it is enforced so that the benefits of the Olympic sponsorship accrue only to those who pay for it. Sponsors get exclusive global rights to use Olympic symbols for their product category in their promotional material. Many entities would like to have their wares and services publicly associated with the popular Olympics. Since the brand comprises a revenue stream too important to slide into the public domain, the Olympic movement assiduously protects its symbols and usage of the word "Olympic." It has succeeded in changing names of a rock band (The Olympic Hopefuls), non-profit groups who used the term for their competitive games, and a theatre (Improv Olympic). The "Olympics of the Mind" was forced to change to "Odyssey of the Mind," and a card game "Legend of the Five Rings" was renamed. Olymel, a Quebec meat processing company, applied in 1991 to register the trademarks "Olymel" and "Olymel & Design" for the meats and other related industry services the company provided. COA opposed. The "imperfect recollection" test was applied. It asked "whether a person who, on a first impression, knowing one mark only and having an imperfect recollection of it, would likely be deceived or confused."