What is the test for collateral attack in a sexual abuse case?

British Columbia, Canada


The following excerpt is from Roeder v. Lang Michener Lawrence & Shaw, 2007 BCCA 152 (CanLII):

Applying these formulations to the facts in Toronto v. C.U.P.E., Arbour J. emphasized that the union was not seeking to overturn the sexual abuse conviction itself, but simply to contest "... for the purposes of a different claim with different legal consequences, whether the conviction was correct. It is an implicit attack on the correctness of the factual basis of the decision, not a contest about whether that decision has legal force, as clearly it does." (At para 34.) She did not advert to the fact that the arbitrator had made a factual finding obviously contrary to that made, on a higher standard of proof, by the criminal court and did not state expressly that the principle of collateral attack was not applicable. Rather, she stated, "in light of the focus of the collateral attack rule on attacking the order itself and its legal effect … the better approach here is to go directly to the doctrine of abuse of process." (My emphasis.)

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