A motion for an interlocutory injunction was brought to prevent the City of Toronto from enforcing its By-law that prohibited camping and erecting tents, structures, and shelters in City parks, City of Toronto Municipal Code, c. 608. The applicants did not challenge the validity of the By-law but sought an order to have it suspended …Read more

The applicants appealed a decision affirming the constitutionality of Brian’s Law (Mental Health Legislative Reform), 2000, S.O. 2000, c. 9. (“Brian’s Law”), which was enacted by the Ontario legislature in 2000. Brian’s Law amended the Mental Health Act (“MHA”), adding provisions that expanded criteria for involuntary committal in a psychiatric hospital and introduced community treatment …Read more

The applicants’ claim was based on s. 27(1)(b) of the Constitution – the right to sufficient food and water, which they submitted found further expression in the provisions of the Water Services Act 108 of 1997 (“WSA”). Their complaint argued that farm occupiers and labour tenants, especially the applicants, lacked “access to sufficient water, basic …Read more

The applicant, Mr. Slavko Krajnc, was a professional truck driver in Celje, Slovenia. On September 29, 2003, Krajnc was deemed to have “category III work-related disability” as a result of his epilepsy, which rendered him unable to work as a truck driver. Accordingly, he had the right to be assigned to a different, more suitable …Read more

The respondent JH, a member of a First Nation in British Columbia, was admitted to the Foothills Medical Centre, run by the respondent, Alberta Health Services, on September 5, 2014 for the treatment of sepsis in his knee. Following surgery and a 20-day hospital stay, JH sought discharge. Instead, JH was admitted as a formal …Read more

In 2014, the legislature in Louisiana passed Act 620 which requires any doctor who performs abortions in Louisiana to have admitting privileges at a hospital no more than 30 miles from where the abortion is performed. Admitting privileges is defined as being “a member in good standing” of the hospital’s “medical staff…with the ability to …Read more

The defendant, Jeremy Rodriguez, was an inmate at FCI Elkton, a federal detention centre in Elkton, Ohio. Rodriguez was serving the seventeenth year of a twenty-one year mandatory minimum sentence for drug distribution and unlawful firearm possession, and was one year away from becoming eligible for home confinement, when the COVID-19 pandemic erupted in the …Read more

Plaintiffs Laddy Curtis Valentine (“Valentine”) and Richard Elvin King (“King”) were inmates at Wallace Pack Unit (“Pack Unit”), a geriatric state prison run by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (“TDCJ”) in Grimes County, Texas. On March 30, 2020, plaintiffs filed a complaint, alleging that the defendants, TDCJ Executive Director Bryan Collier (“Collier”), Pack Unit …Read more

The Petitioners were a group of individuals being held in civil detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at three locations: the York County Prison, the Clinton County Correctional Facility, and the Pike County Correctional facility, while awaiting the final disposition of their immigration cases. With the rapid and expansive spread of the novel coronavirus …Read more

The appellant was charged with four counts of first-degree murder for when he drove to his ex-wife’s grandmother’s house and shot his ex-wife, her grandmother, and his two daughters to death. The murders followed the appellant going through a divorce with the now deceased ex-wife and suffering a job loss which left him distraught. There …Read more

The plaintiffs are two non-profit organizations, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association and the John Howard Society of Canada. The plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of sections 31-33 and 37 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (CCRA), which authorized administrative segregation of inmates in federal prisons. Section 31 provided that the purpose of administrative segregation …Read more

The appellant, Patient X,filed a complaint against a physician, Dr. Y, with the College of Physicians and Surgeons. She alleged that he inappropriately touched her breast and made racially inappropriate comments about her “black” lung capacity as compared to “white” lungs. The Investigation Committee dismissed the appellant’s complaint. The Committee’s written decision stated that there …Read more

The appellant was a 62 year old female diagnosed with schizophrenia. She had a long-standing history of hospitalization, treatment, release, de-compensation, relapse, and re-admission. When psychotic, the appellant had a history of troubling behaviour, including attempts to divert traffic, throwing objects out of a window, crashing her car and smashing other cars with brooms. The …Read more

Rodney Nelson sought judicial review of his involuntary admission to a psychiatric hospital under Ontario’s Mental Health Act (“MHA”) and an order for his immediate release due to rights infringements. Nelson had a lengthy history of crimes with many violent offences, including sexual offences against women and children. A psychiatrist completed an application for psychiatric …Read more

The Plaintiff Ms. Dora Bempong worked with the Respondent Cooper Place and Central City Lodge (hereinafter the Society) for 20 years. She was a member of and represented by, Hospital Employee’s Union (hereinafter the Union), the second respondent. The relationship between the Society and the Union was governed by a Collective Agreement, which was filed. …Read more

Defendant Governor Dannel Malloy declared a public health emergency in Connecticut in March 2014, in response to an Ebola outbreak in the West African countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. This Emergency Declaration authorized Defendant Dr. Mullen, the State Commissioner of Public Health, to quarantine individuals whom she reasonably believed were at risk of …Read more

The Claimant, Caleb Orozco, a citizen of Belize was a homosexual male and a health educator. In the Supreme Court of Belize, he challenged the constitutional validity of Section 53 of the Belize Criminal Code to the extent that it criminalized anal sex between two consenting male adults. Section 53 of the Criminal Code stated …Read more

These are two separate appeals where both appellants challenged the Magistrates’ Court’s decision on the jurisdiction of Drug Treatment Court (DTC) to deal with alcohol addiction and traffic offenses under Section 68 of the Criminal Code Act 1907. They were heard together because they raised the same legal issues. Both appellants suffered from addiction to …Read more

The plaintiff, Kaci Hickox, brought a civil rights action against Governor Christie and state public health officials, alleging that her 80-hour quarantine, upon returning to the United States after caring for Ebola patients in West Africa, violated her rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. Prior to the plaintiff’s return to the United States, a …Read more

The writ of Habeas Corpus was brought for the release of the defendants who were arrested for providing illegal abortion services through their clinic with the consent of the women. The Criminal District Court released the defendants but allowed the appeal of the Public Prosecutor for a pre-trial detention. The decision was based on the …Read more

In 2013, the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 2 (H.B. 2), which contained several provisions, which restricted access to abortion. One such requirement was that a doctor must have admitted privileges at a hospital within 30 miles and further every health facility offering abortion services must become mini hospitals as ambulatory surgical centers. A group …Read more

The plaintiffs challenges several sections under the Oklahoma Code stating that it imposed unreasonable restrictions on abortion providers and therefore was in violation of the Oklahoma constitution. Amongst the measure the plaintiffs challenged, one of the sections allowed warrantless searches of abortion clinics. Other sections imposed strict requirements such as preserving tissue in case the …Read more

The petitioners in this case were a group of abortion service providers claiming that two provisions in the House Bill 2 (H.B.2) enacted by the Texas Legislature were unconstitutional as they violated the 14th Amendment. One of the provisions (the admitting privilege provision) stipulated that a physician performing or inducing the abortion had to have …Read more

Peters, the plaintiff, brought a class action against St. Joseph Services Corporation for damages after a data breach of St. Joseph’s computer network. While purchasing health care services, Peters had provided her personally identifiable and protected health information to St. Joseph, including her name, social security number, birthdate, address, medical records, and bank information. In …Read more

CNS International Ministries, Inc. (CNC) and Heartland Christian College (HCC), both nonprofit religious organizations, requested an injunction enjoining the government from enforcing certain provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Both organizations had strong Christian identities and were against abortion, including methods of contraception that they viewed as equivalent to abortion due …Read more

The case concerns the religious exemption and accommodation to the contraceptive mandate under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“ACA”), which requires health insurance plans to provide coverage for contraception. Plaintiffs were religious organizations who claimed that covering contraception on employee health insurance violated their religious freedom. An exemption from the mandate was available …Read more

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“the Act”) advanced three key reforms to the U.S. health insurance market. First, it instituted insurance market regulations barring insurers from denying coverage or charging higher premiums to any individual based on health status. Second, it enacted a coverage mandate, requiring individuals to have health insurance or pay …Read more

This case challenged rules adopted by the Iowa Board of Medicine (“Board”) regarding medicated abortions provided via telemedicine. Starting in 2008, doctors in Iowa at Planned Parenthood began performing abortions via telemedicine. The abortions were performed using mifepristone, a drug that that can be taken orally that terminates a pregnancy, and misoprostol, another oral drug …Read more

After Plaintiff Gloria Taylor was diagnosed with a terminal illness in 2009, she challenged the constitutionality of the Canadian Criminal Code Section 241(b), which prohibited assistance in dying. The trial court held that the law was unconstitutional and granted Taylor an exemption from the law. The Court of Appeal reversed, basing their decision on the …Read more

Mr. Allen was a dentist who required a back operation. A multi-year wait time to be treated within the Alberta health care system and increased pain forced Mr. Allen to sell his dental practice to pay for surgery in Montana (a state in the United States) instead of waiting an additional 18 months to have …Read more

The case concerned an Alaskan regulation that restricted low-income women from accessing medically necessary abortion care under Medicaid, in particular over the definition of “medically necessary” abortions. The Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) had funded such abortions after a 2001ruling from the Supreme Court of Alaska struck down a regulation that restricted state-funded …Read more

The petitioners were same-sex couples from various U.S. states who challenged the constitutionality of bans on same-sex marriage in those states. They claimed that the bans violated the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Due Process Clause protects individuals from the arbitrary denial of life, …Read more