Heyes Inc. v. South Coast B.C. Transportation Authority, 2011 BCCA 77

http://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/jdb-txt/CA/11/00/2011BCCA0077.htm

If I had more time, I would definitely try to read more legal judgments. They are very logically laid out and for the most part a very interesting read.

I was intrigue on CBC that Heyes' damages was appealed. Basically she ran a shop on Cambie and sued Translink for damages because of nuisance. She argued that she suffered harm from a disruption in her business, which was caused by a reduction of traffic because of the cut and cover tunnel construction of the Canada Line, an inference initiated by Translink.

Let's set the record straight: I thought Heyes deserved to lose. She was hindering progress.

It boiled down to the finding that Translink was acting under the statutory authority of the city when it redirected traffic (the interference that caused harm) during the construction of the Canada Line. However, it didn't have statutory authority of cut and cover tunnel construction, which directly caused the need to redirect traffic.

Translink though did have the authority to construct the Canada Line, and the Appeal Court found that there was no viable alternative to cut and cover tunneling when the whole project was looked at holistically; the trial judge erred in measuring the gain in social utility by choosing the cut and cover method, and that other options, such as tunnel boring, were not a viable alternative.

Therefore, the fact that Translink had no statutory authority to use the cut and tunnel method was rendered inconsequential, as it was the only viable construction method when it exerted its statutory authority to construct the Canada Line. Thus Translink did not commit nuisance under the defense of statutory authority--that it had the right to commit the inference as dictated by a statue (law).

Project

I got myself a project after my exam. I will need to get a DVI to HDMI cable.
Oh man and I want to get back into Rubik's cubing. Damn it I don't want to do this stupid exam anymore :'(.

Exam progress:
Notes compilation complete.
Notes editing phase.

OMG I'm bleeding like a facet. I hate this crazy hot, dry weather.

Exam progress:
Freidland done and all notes taken. Read through Blanchard and took notes. Going through the other reserving notes now. Mack, and Brosius are not bad. Barnett and Zehnwirth is sort of WTF. I think I would find it interesting if I was still in school and they had provided more proofs in the paper. Currently, it just pulls results out of the their ass and then switches to applications; gah.

Manulife Posts 2.4B Loss in Q2 2010

You really need to listen to the investor call. It's full of gems. Personally, they are overexposed to the market due to their VAs, period. Their URR assumption in their actuarial liability is still very high. The road ahead could still be VERY ugly for Manulife.

Gems:
-Fortress of capital is now 221%
-Other "contingent" options other than issuing common equity
-Whining about CGAAP

CF-18 Crash

It definitely looks like he had lost engine power while flying at a low speed close to the ground and didn't have enough attitude to recover. It was sad to see a piece of awesome machinery go up in flames :(. Don't use this as an excuse for spending 9 billion for F35s though!

Exam progress:
All sources gathered.
Reading progress: currently at Chapter 13 of Freidland. The book is a little painful to read because of all the tables. It reminds me of the crazy flipping one have to do while reading Loss Models, though at least I can spread the pages of this one all over my desk/bed.

Son of a gun: Save-on-Foods can't do math

It appears Save-On's POS system has an option for "SOM SAVINGS-RET" built-in for people who wants to do a price adjustment for forgetting their Save-On More card. However, the system doesn't adjust for taxes! I thought the amount I got back was odd but it didn't hit me right away what was wrong. I hope the federal government spends the 5 cents I donated wisely.

But this does bring up the point that once the HST kicks in, people will need to be more careful--12% is a lot higher than the 5% that I lost today.

On another thought, I got a free cash advance because I paid by credit but the cashier gave me cash. Come to think of it, I think it's possible that the cashier just looked at the "You could have saved $1.00" line on the receipt and just keyed that into the system as my refund. If so then Save-On's has bad training and not a dumb POS system.

To wrap it all up though, I found a 4GB Memory Stick Pro Duo on the ground on the way home. No racy pictures on the stick though (DAMN!!!). So overall it was a good day even though I lost 5 cents.

EDIT:
OMG I just realized because of my MBNA smart cash, my net loss from this transaction is actually 0.

I think I'll start an Exam 6 study log. It will encourage me to write more on my blog and I have never logged myself while studying. This should be an interesting experience; I wonder how I will feel about all the hours I devoted to this exam in the end. So far this Exam 6 looks VERY intimidating. Just by glancing over the articles on the syllabus there are definitely more than one thousand pages of material.

Exam 6 progress:
-sources gathered: 4/30
-sources read: 0/30