📆 What you were looking at in 2016: CanLII’s top cases

Each year we compile lists of the most popular cases in the past year. This year is no exception, because one of the comforting things in life is consistency, and the most read cases on CanLII.org give you that this year. Five of the cases on the list were on last year’s list too, and the top two cases are unchanged from last year; four of the cases on this year’s list were on the top 10 list in 2014.

As ever we invite discussion of the cases on the list and their significance. If you would like to read what others think, please see the listed cases on CanLII Connects, almost all of them have been discussed there.

Top 10 cases in 2016*

1. Meads v. Meads, 2012 ABQB 571 (CanLII)

2. Dunsmuir v. New Brunswick, [2008] 1 SCR 190, 2008 SCC 9 (CanLII)

3. R. v. Jordan, 2016 SCC 27 (CanLII) (Combined English and French versions)

4. Bhasin v. Hrynew, [2014] 3 SCR 494, 2014 SCC 71 (CanLII)

5. Carter v. Canada (Attorney General), [2015] 1 SCR 331, 2015 SCC 5 (CanLII)

6. Hryniak v. Mauldin, [2014] 1 SCR 87, 2014 SCC 7 (CanLII)

7. Baker v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), [1999] 2 SCR 817, 1999 CanLII 699 (SCC)

8. R. v. Grant, [2009] 2 SCR 353, 2009 SCC 32 (CanLII)

9. R. v. Ghomeshi, 2016 ONCJ 155 (CanLII)

10. Sattva Capital Corp. v. Creston Moly Corp., [2014] 2 SCR 633, 2014 SCC 53

* In order to maintain consistency with our weekly “Hot on CanLII” posts published on Slaw.ca, we are using the same measure of “hotness” i.e. the total time visitors spent on the page, as we have found this gives the best measure of significance.

Doing some quick mental arithmetic, it took us ~11 years to reach 1,000,000 cases (as per Simon Fodden in the Slaw.ca post from 2012), and only ~4 more years to add ~600,000 more.

Breaking with tradition, this year there are no cases on the list that are primarily there because for their humourous content.

Due to the lack of change in the annual list we include a list of the top cases released in the year being too:

Top 10 2016 cases published in 2016

1. R. v. Jordan, 2016 SCC 27 (CanLII)**

2. R. v. Ghomeshi, 2016 ONCJ 155 (CanLII)

3. R. v. Pelletier, 2016 ONCJ 628 (CanLII)

4. R. v. Elliott, 2016 ONCJ 35 (CanLII)

5. Wilson v. Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., 2016 SCC 29 (CanLII)

6. Howard v. Benson Group Inc. (The Benson Group Inc.), 2016 ONCA 256 (CanLII)

8. Ledcor Construction Ltd. v. Northbridge Indemnity Insurance Co., 2016 SCC 37 (CanLII)

9. Groia v. The Law Society of Upper Canada, 2016 ONCA 471 (CanLII)

10. Doe 464533 v N.D., 2016 ONSC 541 (CanLII)

10. R. v. Lloyd, [2016] 1 SCR 130, 2016 SCC 13 (CanLII)

** The French version of R. v. Jordan, 2016 CSC 27, was actually the 6th most consulted case from 2016, but we amalgamated the results for the purposes of the list. The position of the English version on the list is unchanged due to the amalgamation.