Dunsmuir v New Brunswick

Dunsmuir v New Brunswick
Supreme Court of Canada
Hearing: May 15, 2007 Judgment: March 7, 2008
Full case name	David Dunsmuir v. Her Majesty the Queen in Right of the Province of New Brunswick as represented by Board of Management
Citations	2008 SCC 9, [2008] 1 SCR 190
Prior history	APPEAL from Dunsmuir v. Her Majesty the Queen in Right of the Province of New Brunswick, as represented by the Board of Management, 2006 NBCA 27 (23 March 2006), affirming New Brunswick v. Dunsmuir, 2005 NBQB 270 (4 August 2005), quashing a preliminary ruling and quashing in part an award made by an adjudicator.
Ruling	Appeal Dismissed
Holding
Correctness and reasonableness should be the only two standards of judicial review with respect to decision-making. The correctness standard will apply with respect of jurisdictional and some other questions of law, and the reasonableness standard is concerned mostly with the existence of justification, transparency, and intelligibility within the decision‑making process and with whether the decision falls within a range of possible acceptable outcomes which are defensible in respect of the facts and the law. If the question is one of fact, discretion, or policy or the legal issue is intertwined with and cannot be readily separated from the factual issue, deference by the court will usually apply automatically with respect to the decision made.
Court membership
Chief Justice: Beverley McLachlin Puisne Justices: Michel Bastarache, Ian Binnie, Louis LeBel, Marie Deschamps, Morris Fish, Rosalie Abella, Louise Charron, Marshall Rothstein
Reasons given
Majority	Bastarache and LeBel JJ, joined by McLachlin CJ, Fish and Abella JJ
Concurrence	Binnie J
Concurrence	Deschamps J, joined by Charron and Rothstein JJ

Dunsmuir v New Brunswick, 2008 SCC 9, [2008] 1 SCR 190 was, prior to Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov,^[1] the leading Supreme Court of Canada decision on the topic of substantive review and standards of review. Dunsmuir is notable for combining the reasonableness (simpliciter) and the patent unreasonableness standards of review into a single reasonableness standard.