It’s been 14 years since I lost ADM Measurements Ltd. v. Bullet Electric Ltd. and, apparently, I’m still not entirely over it. The rest of the legal profession has moved on. The judge has retired. Subsequent decisions have given me the occasional moment of thinking that some of our arguments weren’t so unreasonable after all. But as far as I know, nobody has issued a revised scorecard for the trial I lost. I keep checking. The case came back to me recently when I read an Ontario decision about a supervisor who was dismissed for time theft. The employer had a rule, or at least believed it had one. The employee had been doing what he’d been taught to do. The court had to work out what the workplace actually looked like before deciding whether his conduct was dishonest. That question reminded me of the oilfield business at the centre of ADM . It also reminded me of a conversation in Justice Adam Germain’s courtroom that I’ve never forgotten. I was second chair for ADM, working alongside Roderick Payne.
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