In this issue - #91 September 28, 2006

Pushor Mitchell is pleased to welcome Michael Litchfield to our firm as an Associate lawyer.

Pushor Mitchell's Associate Counsel, Richard Wageman, was a speaker at the recent annual meeting of the International Bar Association meeting in Chicago. 

Please join us for this informative presentation on estate planning and wealth preservation.

Our Labour & Employment Law Group is pleased to announce the publication of its first annual update on labour and employment law developments, WorkTalk.

The Canadian Standards Association (CSA) has unveiled Canada’s first consensus-based occupational health and safety management standard.

In Colak v. UV Systems Technology Inc., B.C.’s Supreme Court recently held that an employee who had filed a complaint with the Employment Standards Branch for wages owing was precluded from commencing a separate action for severance pay under his employment contract.

Some employees expect to receive free samples of their employers’ products, but this instance is ridiculous! 

In a recent edition of his weekly column, “Legal Ease”, which appears nationally in a variety of print and electronic media, Robert Smithson addressed the continuing challenge employers face in determining whether to engage individuals as employees or independent contractors.  Robert’s article highlights the significant liabilities employers face when improperly characterizing employees as independent contractors.

In a recent article appearing in the electronic newsletter, HRinfodesk, Yosie St. Cyr summarized the projections by the Hay Group, Hewitt Associates, Mercer Human Resources Consulting, and Morneau Sobeco of average salary increases in 2007.

A worker at a Corunna, Ontario plastics plant accidentally tripped a switch which shut down the entire manufacturing facility.

WorkSafeBC has published its preliminary rates for the 2007 year.

The company that produces the "Girls Gone Wild" tapes of young women pleaded guilty  recently  to  US  federal charges and agreed to pay fines totaling $2.1 million.
 

According to Christopher Painter, deputy chief of the computer crimes and intellectual property section at the
U.S. Department of Justice, cyberscams are increasingly being committed by organized crime syndicates out to profit from sophisticated ruses rather than hackers keen to make an online name for themselves.
 

A federal appeals court has affirmed an $8.7 million verdict for the plaintiffs in a roof-crush crashworthiness case against Ford Motor Co. involving a 1996 Crown Victoria, finding that the evidence supported the jury's conclusions.

Service exports often appear more complex than product exports to potential partners, such as banks or other investors.

The world's largest law collection is the Law Library of Congress in Washington, which is in excess of 2 million legal books, and includes 25,000 rare books.