Claim OwnershipLegally Speaking with Michael Mulligan
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© 2026 Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan
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Legal news and issues with lawyer Michael Mulligan on CFAX 1070 in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
299 Episodes
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A court can end up deciding the fate of an island by looking at the scars on cedar trees and counting the rings inside them. We dig into a new British Columbia Court of Appeal decision on Aboriginal title for Nootka Island off Vancouver Island, where the key legal question is what “sufficient use” meant at the moment of sovereignty in 1846 under the Oregon Treaty. That one date forces everyone to reconstruct the past using expert anthropology, historical records, and physical evidence on the ...
Messi-sized hype, premium ticket prices, then a last-minute announcement that the stars aren’t coming. We walk through the Vancouver Whitecaps class action that followed, including the consumer protection and contract claims that were pleaded and the court process that protects thousands of ticket buyers who never appear in court. If you’ve ever wondered how a class action settlement gets approved in British Columbia, we translate the legal test of “fair and reasonable” into plain language, i...
Two neighbouring provinces are running a live experiment on professional regulation, and the results could shape how Canadians think about law societies, licensing bodies, and government power. We walk through British Columbia’s Legal Professions Act changes, including the shift in what the Law Society is being asked to prioritize, and how that ties into disputes over mandatory cultural competency and sensitivity training for lawyers. Then we cross into Alberta, where Bill 13, the Regulated ...
A hyperlink and headline can change the stakes of a professional disagreement. We talk through a Victoria-based defamation lawsuit against the Law Society of British Columbia after a lawyer proposes changing mandatory Indigenous cultural competency training language about the Kamloops residential school from an asserted discovery of 215 bodies to wording focused on potential unmarked burial sites. When the Law Society links to a statement titled “Racist Resolution,” the dispute moves fr...
Someone dies, and the person beside them makes a choice that shocks everyone: no call for help, no report, just a body hidden away. We unpack a BC Provincial Court sentencing decision under Criminal Code section 182, the offence of offering an indignity to a dead body or human remains, and why the judge calls the conduct inherently serious even though there’s no finding that the accused caused the death. Along the way, we break down aggravating versus mitigating factors, the role of remorse a...
A stolen truck blows a stop sign at 4 a.m., the driver vanishes into the dark, and ICBC says the injured victims didn’t take “all reasonable steps” to find who hit them. We dig into the Court of Appeal’s reversal and why the phrase reasonable must mean proportionate to the facts, not an endless checklist of posters, door knocks, and guesswork. When police have already run dog tracks, canvassed cameras, interviewed witnesses, and done forensics, what more would actually move the needle—and whe...
A hose can start a lawsuit—and a precedent can end one. We dive into two fresh BC court decisions that show how civil law balances fairness, timing, and finality. First, we break down a neighbourhood flooding dispute where homeowners sought to amend their notice of civil claim to add trespass by water and psychological injury tied to both the intrusion and an insurance denial. We explain why “trespass by water” is a real, narrow pathway—requiring a direct projection of water—and how it differ...
Your face might already live in a searchable database—and BC’s courts just drew a sharp line around what companies can do with it. We break down a major ruling that upholds the privacy commissioner’s order against Clearview AI, unpack why “publicly available” doesn’t mean “free to scrape,” and explain how a province can regulate a US firm with no brick-and-mortar presence. This is a story about jurisdiction in the age of the internet, biometric data rights, and the limits of consent on social...
A live wiretap, a lawyer on the line, and a rule that said “stop listening”—which police ignored. We dive into a rare Supreme Court of Canada decision where constitutional safeguards, solicitor-client privilege, and the search for truth collide. The stakes are real: can a lawyer use privileged communications to defend themselves when facing criminal allegations, and what happens when the state breaches explicit limits on surveillance? We walk through why solicitor-client privilege is foundat...
Big wins, bigger rules, and the fine print that shapes how money and data move in British Columbia. We start with the sourced cash condition that kicks in when casino buy‑ins exceed $10,000 and follow a frequent winner who challenged the requirement as unfair. The court weighed his argument against a framework that aims to deter money laundering with minimal burden, landing on a pragmatic outcome: reasons should usually be given, but receipts and bank trails are a reasonable gate to the high‑...
A courtroom isn’t a referendum on character, and we dig into why that principle matters. We break down the Supreme Court of Canada’s updated guidance on Corbett applications—the rules that govern when an accused’s criminal record can be used to challenge credibility. We talk plainly about the balancing test judges apply: weigh probative value against unfair prejudice. Dishonesty offences like fraud and perjury can be highly relevant to truthfulness; dated youth convictions for non‑deceitful v...
A will that looks proper on paper can still fall apart under real scrutiny. We walk through a striking Court of Appeal decision where a 92‑year‑old’s revised will took 18 nieces and nephews from life‑changing inheritances to token gifts, while siblings stood to gain over a million each. The key isn’t drama; it’s doctrine. When circumstances around a will raise well‑grounded suspicion—undue influence, unclear capacity, or radical shifts without explanation—the usual presumption of validity dro...
What happens when a charity’s promise of affordable homeownership collides with tenancy law, a defendant’s faith collides with courtroom rules, and a tiny ownership share collides with a big tax bill? We dig into three BC Court of Appeal storylines that ripple through daily life, showing how legal reasoning protects public purpose, fair trials, and housing policy. First, we unpack a pivotal ruling that keeps Habitat for Humanity’s early occupancy model alive. A participant who entered a home...
A small BC registry faced an outsized problem: one litigant’s avalanche of quasi‑legal letters and “certificates” that looked official enough to demand hours or days of staff time to sort, scan, and check. We trace how the Attorney General sought an injunction and how the court landed on a careful middle ground—no more bulk mail, but full access for legitimate filings in person, by agent, or through Court Services Online, with authority to discard items that don’t meet the Rules of Court. It’...
Courtrooms, campus corridors, mountain slopes, and border tarmacs: we connect them through three rulings that change how you navigate rights, rules, and risk. We start with a Vancouver Island University protest case where banners, ladders, and megaphones escalated into disruptions of exams. The student fought a two‑year suspension, arguing misidentification, unfair process, and—most ambitiously—freedom of expression under the Charter. We walk through why the court said no, revisiting Dolphin ...
A 76-page justice overhaul just landed, and we’re diving into what actually changes for victims, accused persons, and the people who keep our courts running. We break down how Bill C-16 reframes parts of criminal law—naming femicide as a route to first-degree murder, tackling AI-generated intimate images and deepfakes, and defining coercive control—while asking the hard question: can an already stretched system carry the weight? We walk through the new femicide framework and why proving patt...
A single sentence can change a career. We open with a real-world case: a shuttle driver on SFU property tells a flagger she’s “unbelievably beautiful” and suggests modelling. Security documents the exchange, the university issues a campus ban, and the employer fires him. He then pushes for the complainant’s identity under FOIPPA, arguing that the decision-makers needed complete, accurate information. We walk through why FOIPPA binds public bodies but not private companies, how section 28 actu...
A signed page beside a will. A daughter who gave up her life to care for her parents. A court is asked to decide whether a single sheet of paper can rewrite an estate. We dig into a recent BC Supreme Court ruling to unpack how WESA’s formal requirements and the curative power of section 58 actually work when intention, capacity, language, and timing collide. If you’ve ever wondered whether “wishes” are enough, this story shows why two witnesses, translation, and dated execution details matter...
A single sentence in the Criminal Code can decide whether you can legally remove someone from your home—or whether you’re suddenly the one at risk of an assault charge. We break down a fresh BC Supreme Court ruling that reads purpose into Parliament’s 2011 reforms on self-defence and defence of property, answering a practical question with big stakes: if you invite someone in and later revoke consent, can you use reasonable force to make them leave? Short answer: yes, if you give a reasonable...
Ever wondered when a judge’s questions stop clarifying and start tilting the scales? We dive into a BC sexual assault case where the trial judge’s heavy-handed interventions—pages of pointed questioning, steering how evidence was led, and relying on answers personally elicited—pushed the process past what a reasonable observer would call fair. The conviction didn’t fall because of proven bias, but because the appearance of fairness matters just as much as the verdict, and the court ordered a ...
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