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Legal Research

Case Law - Databases

These databases can be used to access case law from all levels and jurisdictions of judicial bodies in the country. Including, Federal, Provincial, and Territorial courts, boards and tribunals.

1. Search the fulltext for case decisions by its actual name or style of cause. 

2. Search the fulltext of case decisions by using keywords:

  • Specific facts of a case - what happened, who was involved, dates, times, etc.

  • The legal issues that arise from the facts

Federal Courts - Case Law

Federal Court of Canada

Supreme Court of Canada

Tax Court of Canada

Military Courts

Boards and Tribunals

Case Digests

Canadian Abridgment Digests are finding tools that provide brief summaries of the facts and issues of a case, plus its citation, which allows you to review many cases in a relatively short time without overly complex searching. Covers virtually every case reported in Canada since 1803, and every reported or unreported case received from the courts since 1986, with the exception of Quebec civil law cases. Commonly known as the Canadian Abridgment or Abridgment.

Try the Abridgment when:

  • you at the beginning of your research
  • if fulltext searching is retrieving too many or too few cases
  • explore the case law on a topic
  • later on as a check to make sure you haven't missed anything.