Trial The trial began in June 1934 before Justice
William Ives with three days of testimony from MacMillan. Brownlee's lawyer,
Arthur LeRoy Smith, used his
cross examination to call into question almost everything MacMillan said. To refute her claim that Brownlee had convinced her to move to Edmonton, he entered into evidence a letter she had written to Alberta College seeking information on its programs, dated before she had even met Brownlee. He further demonstrated that on the evening of the seduction, which had allegedly taken place in a car on a side road west of Edmonton, the city had been engulfed in a blizzard. Moreover, the government car in which the seduction was supposed to have taken place had not been purchased until more than a year after that date. In response to her testimony that she had always slept in the maid's room while staying with the Brownlees, Smith produced letters showing that she had actually slept in Mrs. Brownlee's room. After MacMillan conceded her mistake, Smith noted that Mrs. Brownlee's room had a large
deadbolt on the door: if she had feared Brownlee, why had she not used it? "Because I just did as Mr. Brownlee said," was the
plaintiff's response. MacMillan, when questioned, admitted that the period during which she had been staying in the Brownlee home in the spring of 1932, which she had initially placed at six weeks, was actually only four. When she identified these four weeks as the last two weeks of April and the first two of May, Smith showed that Brownlee had been out of town for all but ten nights of that period. presided over the trial and ultimately overturned the jury's verdict against Brownlee.Other witnesses for the plaintiffs included a former maid of Brownlee's, who testified that she had seen the premier pick MacMillan up in his car late one night, and MacMillan's landlady's daughter, who testified that she found MacMillan sobbing in her room one night. Allan MacMillan was also called: though he testified that Brownlee had encouraged his daughter to move to Edmonton and promised to forward information about Alberta College, he acknowledged that the premier had not followed through and not contacted her again until she was in Edmonton. The defence called Brownlee, who recounted his version of events. He testified that he had been otherwise occupied on many of the days that he and MacMillan had supposedly had sex; in one case, he produced newspaper stories showing that he had been making a speech in
Stettler at a time that MacMillan had claimed he was forcing himself upon her in Edmonton. In another, he testified that he was meeting with O. H. Snow, the mayor of
Raymond. MacLean on cross-examination tried to paint Brownlee as a man of tremendous persuasive powers, recalling his time as a lawyer in
Calgary, only to have Brownlee retort that he had only ever tried two cases, spending most of his time drafting commercial documents. MacLean also emphasized the $1,400 that Lymburn as Attorney General had spent investigating the case, suggesting that this amounted to government funds being spent to vindicate Brownlee personally; outside of the courtroom, Lymburn responded that his office had received a complaint that an "Edmonton lawyer"—taken by all involved to be MacLean—had approached a young woman offering money to place Brownlee in a compromising position, and that, as a criminal allegation, it had been the obligation of his office to investigate. He further emphasized that, against his protestations, Brownlee had insisted on reimbursing the government for the full cost of the investigation. After the premier's testimony was completed, Smith called his wife, Florence Brownlee. She supported her husband's account of MacMillan's relationship with the Brownlee family and reported that, when the premier drove MacMillan home at night, he was very seldom late returning. On cross-examination, she denied that she would have defended her husband if she believed him to be guilty. Additional witnesses for the defence included Brownlee's personal secretary, Civil Service Commissioner Frederick Smailes, and four legislature janitors. Smailes acknowledged knowing at the time of MacMillan's hiring that she was acquainted with Brownlee, but denied involvement on Brownlee's part in the decision to hire her, while the janitors denied ever seeing a young woman enter the premier's office in the evenings. Jessie Ellergert, who had worked for the Brownlees as a maid, said that she had no reason to believe that there was a sexual relationship between the premier and MacMillan; moreover, she specifically recalled the Halloween night MacMillan had referred to in her testimony, and testified that the household was far too bustling for the alleged sex to have occurred. The trial concluded with a field trip, as the jury went to view both Brownlee's house and two stretches of road where MacMillan had claimed key encounters took place. Rainy weather meant that on more than one occasion the jurors and lawyers had to push cars out of the mud. Though one road essentially matched MacMillan's description, it was located next to a populated settlement rather than deserted as she had claimed. The other, in contrast to her description of it as a side road, was a busy highway. Upon the jury's return, Smith surprised them by announcing that Brownlee's counter-claim was being dropped; he said that there was no need to complicate the clear cut issue of "seduction or no seduction" with evidence about a conspiracy on the part of MacMillan and Caldwell. Legal historian Patrick Brode criticized this decision, suggesting that the jury was expecting proof of a conspiracy and that, when this proof was not forthcoming, Brownlee's credibility was hurt. Besides the factual issues that the jury was called on to adjudicate, there was a legal issue of what constituted "seduction" under the law. The basis of the claim was a two-hundred-year-old
tort which allowed a man to sue anybody who impregnated his female servant. The basis for damages under such a claim was the servant's inability to perform her duties to the detriment of the employer. The tort was later broadened to allow the seductee's father to sue; only in statute in 1903 was the law amended to give standing to the woman herself. At issue was what damage, if any, she needed to show in order to have a
cause of action. The defence argued that in all precedents there had been a pregnancy resulting, and that without one the plaintiffs could not claim damages. In response, MacLean emphasized the not entirely consensual nature of the alleged relationship. Brownlee himself responded that if the alleged relationship had been non-consensual, he should have been charged under the criminal law for rape, not sued for seduction; that the plaintiffs had not attempted to press criminal charges was evidence, he believed, of their bad faith and financial motivation. After six days of testimony, closing arguments were given: Smith's lasted two hours and fifteen minutes and emphasized the discrepancies in MacMillan's story. MacLean's was a relatively brief forty minutes, in which he argued that the improbable and fantastic nature of his client's tale was evidence that she could not possibly have invented it. Ives then instructed the jurors, and defined "seduction" as "inducing a woman to part with her virtue ... [which] may be by any artful device that brings about her consent." After four hours and forty minutes the jury returned and announced its finding that Brownlee had seduced MacMillan in October 1930 when he had partially penetrated her, and that both she and her father had suffered damage in the amounts claimed. Ives immediately announced that he strongly disagreed with the jury's findings, and that "the evidence does not warrant them". On July 2, he issued his written ruling, overturning the jury's verdict and dismissing the action; his reason for doing so was what he viewed as the lack of damage being demonstrated by the plaintiffs. According to Ives, even if the facts had been exactly as MacMillan had described, as a matter of law the plaintiffs could not claim damages without a pregnancy or an illness.
Media and public reception The trial was covered in lurid detail, especially by the
Edmonton Bulletin, which called it "the greatest drama ever to be heard in an Alberta court". The
Bulletin was a Liberal paper, and MacLean had given it an advance copy of his statement of claim, which allowed MacMillan's allegations to be published and disseminated before the statement of claim was filed. The
Bulletin was emphatically sympathetic to MacMillan in its coverage, and printed her detailed testimony (which included the dates and times of specific encounters) almost verbatim. Under the headline "Vivian Testifies to Harrowing Ordeal", it praised the young plaintiff as "bearing up with wonderful fortitude" and facing the ordeal "with courageous mien". Brownlee, in contrast, was a "love-torn, sex crazed victim of passion and jealousy, forcing his will upon her in parked autos and on country highways". The jury was not sequestered and was free to read these accounts. Edmontonians were no less enthralled than their newspaper, and many showed up to the courthouse early on the days of trial, hoping to get a seat. Towards the end of the trial, Ives revoked the
Bulletin's press privileges at the trial and fined its publisher $300 and a reporter $100 for publishing writing "likely to inflame public opinion and interfere with the even-handed course of justice." Media attention on the trial spread beyond the provincial and national borders:
Time magazine published at least two articles on the trial in the United States, and the
Daily Mail and
Paris Midi covered it from across the
Atlantic. Reaction to the trial's outcome was mixed. The
Bulletin was outraged, as was the Canadian Civil Liberties Protective Association, which called Ives' decision to overturn the jury's finding one that "set the clock back 300 years". Both organized subscriptions to finance an expected appeal. The
Winnipeg Free Press called for an investigation of Ives for apparent favouritism towards Brownlee. The
Vancouver Sun, on the other hand, sympathized with the premier, arguing that his "personal difficulties should not have been aired publicly". Brownlee's political allies, including
Irene Parlby and
Henry Wise Wood, remained loyal, with Wood keeping a large picture of Brownlee on the wall of his guest bedroom.
Appeals The plaintiffs appealed and the case went before the
Alberta Supreme Court appeals division in January 1935. On February 2, by a 3–2 decision, the court upheld Ives' ruling. The majority ruling by Chief Justice
Horace Harvey cast serious doubts on MacMillan's credibility, calling her story "quite unsupported by other evidence" and noting that she "showed a readiness to admit that she may have been mistaken as regards very positive statements previously made when by the questions it appeared there may be independent evidence she was wrong". In addition to agreeing with Ives on the points of law, he felt that the jury had not based its finding of fact on the evidence in the case. Justices
Mitchell and Ford concurred. Justice
Clarke, in dissent, agreed that MacMillan's story was unlikely, but expressed a willingness to defer to the jury on questions of fact. On the legal questions, he cited a precedent written by Justice Harvey himself in which the chief justice had argued that the inclusion of seduced women as potential plaintiffs under the
Seduction Act proved that its framers intended a broader definition of damage than financial damage. Justice Lunney concurred. The court was unanimous in upholding Ives' dismissal of Allan MacMillan's action, and he did not appeal further. Not satisfied with the verdict, the
Bulletin again organized a campaign to fund an appeal, which was submitted to the
Supreme Court of Canada; on March 1, 1937, Ives' decision was overturned. Chief Justice
Lyman Duff, writing for the majority, accepted the jury's finding of fact and, echoing Justice Clarke, concluded that the framers of the Alberta Seduction Act had not intended that damage to a seductee be required to be the same as those to her father or employer (i.e. financial) in order to be actionable. The court ordered Brownlee to pay $10,000 in damages to MacMillan, plus trial costs.
Henry Hague Davis in dissent focussed less on the questions of law and more on the evidence in the case, and argued that the jury's finding of fact was perverse and that the appeal should be dismissed. After the Supreme Court ruling, Brownlee settled with MacMillan, but still desired to clear his name. On July 1, 1937, the federal government by
Order in Council gave him leave to appeal to the
Judicial Committee of the British Privy Council, at the time Canada's highest court of appeal. On March 11 and 12, 1940, the committee heard Brownlee's appeal. It was dismissed on June 4 that year, as the committee endorsed the Supreme Court of Canada's focus on
statutory interpretation. ==Legacy==