Bad Judgment: The Case of Mr. Justice Leo A Landreville

John D. Blackwell is co-ordinator of information services, Arthur A.
Wishart Library, Algoma University College, Sault Ste. Marie.

Bad Judgment has as many twists and turns as a John Grisham novel and
involves enough dramatis personae to fill a Canadian Who’s Who from
the 1950s and 1960s.

Although he was the son of an impoverished Ottawa tenement family and
an indifferent law student, Leo Landreville achieved a meteoric rise. He
moved to Sudbury in the late 1930s; there, his flair for the courtroom
brought him much success. In 1954 he was elected mayor, and in 1956
Louis St. Laurent appointed Landreville to the Supreme Court of Ontario.
He served productively for 11 years as the franco-Ontarian
representative on that bench.

Landreville seemed to have the world in his pocket. Unfortunately, he
also had a secret. While serving as Sudbury’s mayor, he had under
dubious circumstances accepted a stock option for 10,000 shares from
Northern Ontario Natural Gas Limited, which had been formed to provide a
pipeline service to the area. After becoming a judge, Landreville sold
7500 of those shares—without ever having paid a cent for them—and
pocketed a profit of $117,000.

Embarrassed by public exposure of the Landreville case, the legal and
political establishment turned on him with its full might. Arthur
Wishart, Ontario’s Conservative Attorney General, brought criminal
charges against Landreville, but they were dismissed. The Law Society of
Upper Canada, which had always been uncomfortable with his flamboyant
lifestyle as a judge, convened a special committee to examine the case;
despite some concerns about his professional behavior, they found that
the criminal charges had been properly dismissed. In 1966, the Pearson
government launched a Royal Commission, to inquire into the matter,
resulting in a recommendation that Landreville either resign or be
impeached. A joint committee of the Commons and Senate also recommended
removal. Landreville finally agreed to resign in June 1967.

Kaplan’s exhaustive research, balanced analysis, and engaging style
vividly re-create a highly complex episode in which few players acted
impeccably. He concludes that although Landreville’s actions were not
illegal, they were wrong—and, most importantly, that they brought into
question his independence and credibility as a member of the bench.
Landreville, who is now 87 and continues to maintain his innocence,
provided Kaplan with unconditional access to his private papers. Bad
Judgment is highly recommended for specialists and general readers
alike.