Supreme Court of Canada Justice Russell Brown returned to McLennan Ross Hall - the same classroom in which he once taught tort law to first-year students - on Wednesday, September 7, for a public lecture on judicial activism around the foundational tort case, Donoghue v Stevenson. The lecture was attended by students, faculty, staff, and members of the Edmonton bar. Dean Paul D. Paton welcomed Justice Brown back to the Law Centre, noting that "it's not every faculty of law that gets to hear from a Supreme Court Justice three times in one week."
Justice Brown began his lecture - "Common Law Reasoning, or Why Judicial Activism does not explain Donoghue v. Stevenson" - by thanking those in attendance and stating how happy he was to return to the university he calls his true home. Donoghue v Stevenson is the 1932 case that created the modern concept of negligence, extending the limits of a person's duty of care. Justice Brown presented on the tension between judicial activism and incremental common law development. Donoghue v Stevenson is frequently interpreted as an act of judicial activism, where a judge's reading of a societal need results in a major change to the law. Justice Brown contrasted judicial activism with common law reasoning, which operates through incremental change.
Wednesday's lecture followed Justice Brown's keynote address on September 6 at Orientation 2016, and his attendance at a reception in his honour hosted by Miller Thomson LLP. At the evening reception, Dean Paton announced the establishment of The Hon. Justice Russell Brown Lecture Series - Sponsored by Miller Thomson LLP.
Justice Brown served as a faculty member at the University of Alberta Faculty of Law from 2004 to 2013, both as a Professor and as Associate Dean for his final two years. He was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada on August 31, 2015, following judicial appointments to the Court of Queen's Bench of Alberta and the Court of Appeal of Alberta. As a Court of Appeal judge in Edmonton, Justice Brown also served as a Judge of the Court of Appeal for the Northwest Territories and a Judge of the Court of Appeal of Nunavut. Justice Brown is the author of a treatise on claims under negligence law for economic loss, as well as the author or co-author of more than 30 published law review articles, book chapters and review essays on tort law, property law, and civil justice.