Canadian Abridgement

“In theory, using one or two legal encyclopedias or digests should be all that is needed. (…) A legal reference work is useful only to the extent that it offers three things: reasonable completeness; intelligible arrangement; and accuracy. The last two overlap. If cases are put into the wrong categories or footnotes, or if the categories are too big, then legal research becomes
laborious. Worse still, it becomes incomplete and misleading.

Some Canadian legal encyclopedias or digests have very limited case coverage. And the
criteria for exclusion of cases are either unstated or non-existent (that is, inclusion is arbitrary
or random). Severe geographical or date restrictions probably have been used, and getting
access to older editions of encyclopedias or digests is difficult, especially outside a large city. (…)

The Canadian Abridgement probably contains the majority of important Canadian cases.
Its coverage is now pretty thorough.23 But sometimes the relevant legal point in a case is not
clear or obvious from the extracts digested or reprinted. The individual extracts are also often
long and full of irrelevant details. This greatly slows research.
Worse still, the subdivisions in The Canadian Abridgement are often large and vague. If
working with the print volumes, it is very laborious to try to read several hundred wordy fact
summaries of cases clumped under one large vague heading, not to mention trying to stay vigilant throughout that task, always trying to spot evidence of one’s precise desired legal
topic. It is like reading several hundred law school examination problems in one sitting.

The original classification scheme of The Canadian Abridgement in the 1930s was very
good and sophisticated. Unfortunately, in the 1950s through the 1970s, staff assigning cases
to categories sometimes did not seem to understand the categories. The editorial standards
soared in the 1980s. But, by then, huge volumes of available case law threatened to swamp
everyone. Further, many categories are still too broad or vague to be very useful.” (…)

EXAMPLES OF LOST LAW OMITTED FROM CURRENT CANADIAN ABRIDGEMENT

1. About one-third of cases in the first edition (from 1930s) and from pre-1900
Ontario cases.
2. Cases reported only in the Canadian Law Times.
3. Privy Council cases from outside Canada, even if reported in the Western Weekly
Reports.
4. Cases on old legislation, like pre-1948 labour law or rent control.
5. Pre-1949 Newfoundland decisions.
6. A very large portion of Quebec decisions, even on national topics like criminal law,
bankruptcy, bills of exchange, or insurance. As much as two-thirds of cases are
omitted.
7. Unreported cases (for example, 37 percent of decisions from Alberta in 1985).

(“Practical Legal Research”, JE Côté and Debra MacGregor)