Episode 3: Watch Out for Those Hot Dogs!

It’s our first torts podcast interview!

• Have you ever wondered what “jactitation of marriage” is?  (How carefully did you read that syllabus?)
• Have you ever wondered what legal recourse you might have if you get shot with a hot dog cannon?
• Have you ever wondered how to figure out which communities and organizations you should think about joining?
• Have you ever wondered what it would be like to write – not a client e-mail – but an ENTIRE BOOK about nuisance law?

If you have wondered about any of those things, this (super long, but also super cool) episode is for you.

In this episode we interview our first guest, Greg Pun QC.

Greg received his LLB from UBC Law in May 1989. He was a judicial law clerk at the Federal Court Trial Division from 1989-1990. He has been a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada and the Law Society of BC. He was appointed Queen’s Council in 2015.  Greg worked at Russell & DuMoulin (now Fasken Martineau DuMoulin), and at Alexander Holburn Beaudin & Lang. At Alexander Holburn, he established the Appeals Practice Advisory Team, and was the Director of Legal Research and of In-House Professional Development. Greg was the Law Officer of the BC Court of Appeal from 2008-2010.  Find out more about what that means in the interview.  Greg has appeared as counsel in at all levels of court in BC (Provincial, Supreme, Appeal), and at the Supreme Court of Canada.  He was Chair of the Canadian Bar Association – BC Branch section for Legal Research, and founding Chair of the section for Appellate Advocacy.

Greg left active practice in 2012, and has since taught classes on legal research and writing at UBC Law and TRU Law. Greg has also been actively involved with mooting at TRU Law, working with 1L moots, the BC Law Schools Moot, and the Jessup International Law Moot.  He has co-written four law books, including The Law of Nuisance in Canada, as well as many journal articles and seminar papers. He has spoken at many continuing professional development seminars.

Here are links to some things we talk about on the pod:

Coomer v. Kansas City Royals (watch out for those hot dogs)

“In the past, this Court has held that spectators cannot sue a baseball team for injuries caused when a ball or bat enters the stands.  Such risks are an unavoidable—even desirable—part of the joy that comes with being close enough to the Great American Pastime to smell the new-mown grass, to hear the crack of 42 inches of solid ash meeting a 95–mph fastball, or to watch a diving third baseman turn a heart-rending triple into a soul-soaring double-play.  The risk of being injured by Sluggerrr’s hotdog toss, on the other hand, is not an unavoidable part of watching the Royals play baseball.”

Maple Leaf Foods – new Supreme Court of Canada case on negligence and pure economic loss

JP Boyd on the “heart balm torts”

“These torts are so delightfully old-fashioned, and misogynist, that most industrialized nations kicked them to the curb sometime in the 1960s and 1970s.”

Kungl v. Schiefer, a Supreme Court of Canada decision from 1962 – not 1862!

“The wife, while living under her husband’s roof, had entirely ceased to discharge any wifely function. She slept in her own room, locking the door. She refused to speak to her husband; and he was as fully deprived of her consortium as if she lived in a separate building.”