Use this guide to locate case law (i.e., individual court cases) by topic or subject.  For example:

• all cases on cyberbullying in Canada that have been tried since 2005
• cases on spousal abuse that were heard in the Supreme Court of Canada.

Locating case law by subject is time intensive so allow yourself sufficient lead time.

Strategies & sources for finding case law by topic

1. Keyword searching of case law

A keyword search is a simple way to get started with your case law research. In a keyword search, your search term(s) may be searched for anywhere in the full-text of the document.

Keyword searching can be particularly fruitful if your search concept is fairly unique. For instance, a keyword search for mustard gas would likely return significantly more on-topic cases than a keyword search for insurance fraud would.

When choosing keywords, keep in mind that the case law writing tends to be formal in tone and may favour the legalistic wording of a concept over the popular

CanLii

Search CanLii by keyword to find decisions from Canadian Provincial, Supreme, and Appeal Courts, the Supreme Court of Canada and specialized courts, as well as provincial and federal legislation. CanLii also contains decisions from a wide range of boards and tribunals (e.g., BC Human Rights Tribunals). No classification scheme or subject-indexing is available.

2. Secondary legal literature

To find important cases on your topic plus an explanation or legal analysis of the topic, search for articles in academic legal journals or other secondary legal literature sources.

Index to Canadian Legal Literature (ICLL) via LawSource

The ICLL references books, articles, and other publications that discuss Canadian legal topics.  To focus your search, try including the word and in-between your keywords, or put your search terms in quotation marks to search it as a phrase, e.g., "maple leaf foods".   Otherwise, a keyword search for maple leaf foods in the ICLL will return articles with the any of the words maple, leaf, or food in it, leading to many irrelevant results.

Canadian Public Policy Collection

Search the policy papers of think tanks, government agencies, non-profits and others for in-depth analysis on a Canadian legal issue and references to key cases on your topic.

Canadian Newsstand

Newspaper articles may identify key cases on a particular topic and discusses the case in plain language. Databases such as Canadian Newsstand index thousands of newspaper articles from many Canadian newspapers. Try a search for your topic keywords combined with the keyword "judgment". (Note: There is no "e" in judgment when referring to legal judgments).

HeinOnline

Select "Law Journal Library" within the database to search articles from over 1,620 legal journals--US, Canadian, and international Content.

QuickLaw

Contains a large collection of law journal articles. Journal collections searched can easily be limited to Canadian or US/International only.

SFU library catalogue

Search the catalogue for books, especially textbooks, on your legal topic. Textbooks provide broad overviews of legal topics, and can point you to key cases. For example, a keyword search for euthanasia canada law brings up several useful books.

3. Dedicated tools for locating case law by topic

In addition to keyword searching of case law and secondary legal literature, there are longstanding specific tools designed to help you locate cases by topic. Here are some that SFU Library provides access to.

Canadian Abridgment Digest via LawSource.

The Canadian Abridgment Digest (CAD) summarizes Canadian legal cases into a mere paragraph or two, allowing for quick reviews of their relevance. Moreover, all abridged cases are organized by a classification system, allowing you to locate similar cases at once. For instance, by browsing the classification tree, you can pin point cases organized under specific subjects such as: Criminal Law - Charter of Rights and Freedoms - Freedom of peaceful assembly.

The scope of the the Canadian Abridgment is broad and deep, with over 750,000 Canadian cases abridged, from 1803 to present (exception: Quebec Civil Law cases). The Abridgment covers all reported Canadian cases, and includes unreported cases as well from 1986 onwards. Updated daily. The Abridgment can be searched or browsed; for further help, please refer to our guide, Using the Canadian Abridgment.

Canadian Encyclopedic Digest (C.E.D.) via LawSource.

The C.E.D. provides, according to the publisher, a "a comprehensive statement of Ontario and Western law - provincial, federal and common law - as derived from legislation and case law".

Encyclopedia-style entries can be found on a range of Canadian legal topics, providing a current overview of the law as it stands now. Entries include linked citations to relevant case law and legislation. These brief and up-to-date entries are an excellent way to begin legal research on a Canadian topic. Entries can be searched or browsed through the classification system and include such topic-specific entries as Criminal Law — Offences — Automobile Master Key — Selling — Actus Reus.

BestCase

Browse BestCase for case law by topic via a classification scheme. Very short case summaries are classified under hierarchical topics, and then the actual case law is linked from these summaries. To access:

• Log in to BestCase
• Select "case law" from the main menu
• On the left-hand menu, expand the option, "classification schemes and indices"
• Expand the "classification schemes" options
• Select which case law collection to browse. For example, Canadian Criminal Cases covers criminal case law; Dominion Law Reports covers a broad range of Canadian cases.
• Continue to browse through the topical classification tree to find cases categorized under headings such as torts--false arrest and imprisonment.

If you need help, please contact Yolanda Koscielski, Liaison Librarian for Criminology, Engineering, and Computing Science at 778.782.3315 or ysk6@sfu.ca or Ask a librarian.