Blame the law, not the lawyer

We lawyers don't have the best reputation, and this probably isn't going to help matters:

A 26-year-old recent law school graduate may have cost the City of Toronto millions of dollars. He's persuaded a court to throw out a traffic ticket because the road sign was not in both official languages.

If the decision stands up, hundreds of thousands of road signs across the city will have to be replaced, at a cost of $200 each.

The sign in dispute has an image that says no left turn, "7 a.m.-7 p.m. Mon to Fri."

Jennifer Myers was handed a traffic ticket after a police officer caught her violating the sign's warning.

Myers, a lawyer at Toronto firm Pinkofskys, turned the citation over to Daniel Brown, an articling student who'd been with her firm for just two months. She thought it would give him some courtroom experience.

Not only did Brown get the ticket thrown out, he convinced justice of the peace Alice Napier that all of the city's traffic signs were in contravention of a clause in the Ontario's French Language Services Act. The clause appears to require a number of the province's cities, including Toronto, to display traffic signs in both English and French.
[...]
Myers admitted to CFTO that she speaks very little French. Nevertheless, she argues "this defence was there to be argued." Brown says if the sign is illegal, it is invalid.

"It was clear from the legislation that French and English signs were required and it is unfair to hold someone accountable to a sign that is not a lawful sign," he explained.

The city says it will appeal the decision. The city's lawyers say the Highway Traffic Act makes it clear that the clause in question in the French Language Services Act only applies to provincial government services.

The accused doesn't even speak French, but got her ticket tossed out because the sign wasn't in French. It seems outrageous on so many levels - and yet, I find myself wanting to congratulate Brown for coming up with this. I've been called to the bar for five years, and I certainly never would have thought of it.

If the legislation says the signs have to be bilingual but they aren't, the city is in breach of its legal obligations. You can argue that Toronto shouldn't be forced to make all its signs bilingual in the first place, and I'd probably agree - but if that is indeed the law, the city has to follow it. Period. If a government is not subject to the rule of law, well...I don't even want to think about where that could lead.

The key word here, of course, is "if". I presume Brown based his argument (and the judge, his decision) on Section 5 of Ontario's French Language Services Act, which states that a person has the right to recieve French-language services from any government listed in the Schedule, including Toronto. Do road signs count under "available services"? If so, that would appear to contradict section 14 of the Act, which gives a municipality the option of passing a by-law making "all or specified" municipal services bilingual. If section 5 automatically makes all services bilingual, what's the point of section 14?

That's the position the City of Toronto will be taking on appeal, and I think they'll be successful. But I give Daniel Brown a lot of credit for thinking up the defence. He'll go far in this business.

Posted by damian at October 20, 2004 11:56 AM