Source: http://bc-injury-law.com/blog/tag/privilege
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 19:02:35+00:00

Document:
Reasons for judgement were released last week by the BC Supreme Court, Vancouver Registry, dealing with document listing obligations under the new Rules of Court.
In last week’s case (Tran v. Kim Le Holdings Ltd.) the Plaintiff sued for damages as a result of personal injuries. In the course of trial the Defendant called a witness who gave evidence as to the circumstances of the Plaintiff’s injury which were not favourable to the Plaintiff’s case. The same witness had provided the Plaintiff’s lawyer a statement years before the trial with a different version of events. The Plaintiff failed to disclose the existence of this document in her list of documents. The Plaintiff argued that the new Rules of Court don’t require such statements to be listed as they only go to credibility which is a collateral matter.
 Counsel submits, first, that a prior inconsistent statement is not a document that could be used to prove or disprove a material fact. It is a document relevant only to credibility. Therefore, it is not required to be listed. Secondly, counsel submits that until the contradictory evidence was given by the witness, counsel had no intention of using the document at trial. The use of the document has only become necessary because of the surprise in the evidence that was given.
 I turn to deal with this point. I must say that I am sceptical that the plaintiff’s argument is correct. It is common ground that the document here is covered by litigation privilege, which necessarily ties it into relevant issues in the litigation. Rule 7?1(6) governs the listing of privileged documents. It is not obvious to me from the wording of the rule that the scope of the obligation set out in Rule 7?1(6) is qualified or limited by Rule 7?1(1).
 More importantly, however, prior inconsistent statements can be used, in my view, to prove or disprove material facts. Depending on how a witness responds to the statement when put to the witness, the effect of the use of the statement may well go beyond merely affecting credibility. The witness may adopt the content of the statement insofar as it relates to material facts; in that sense, at least, statements can facilitate the proof of material facts. Statements can facilitate the proof of material facts even if the witness does not adopt them, because findings on material facts may be affected by findings on credibility. But if a witness does adopt a prior inconsistent statement and accept the truth of it, that statement may be used as proof of the truth of its contents, and thereby be used to prove or disprove material facts.
 A fine parsing of the obligation to list documents is, in my view, contrary to the policy of disclosure which is exemplified by the Stone decision in the Court of Appeal.
(d) whether, in the circumstances of the case, the ends of justice require the documents to be admitted.
 I observe further, with respect to prejudice, that the defendants could readily have determined whether or not the witness had given a statement. The fact of the existence of the statement was within the knowledge of the defendants. It is not a situation quite like Stone where there would simply be an assumption by counsel that a pain journal had likely been kept and that the fact of the existence of the document could not be verified without the document having been listed. In my view, this mitigates the prejudice, to some degree, that is associated with the use of the document.
 Weighing and balancing these conflicting principles, I have reached the conclusion that, in the interests of justice, counsel ought to be permitted to use the document for the purpose of cross-examination.
Tags: bc injury law, Mr. Justice Harris, prior inconsistent statements, privilege, Rule 7, Rule 7-1, Rule 7-1(1), Rule 7-1(21), Rule 7-1(6), Tran v. Kim Le Holdings Ltd.
Useful reasons for judgement were released this week by the BC Supreme Court, Vancouver Registry, discussing the scope of litigation privilege when a Plaintiff attends an independent medical exam arranged on their behalf in the course of a personal injury lawsuit.
In this week’s case (Lanteigne v. Brkopac) the Plaintiff was injured in a 2008 collision. In the course of the lawsuit the Plaintiff’s lawyer had her assessed by a neuropsychologist to explore the possibility of organic brain injury. The Plaintiff’s lawyer chose not to order a report from the neuropsychologist following the assessment.
 On the other hand, the plaintiff says this is not a case where Rule 7-6(1) is applicable because the court did not make an order under this subrule for the plaintiff to attend to be examined by Dr. Coen. Rather, the plaintiff attended upon Dr. Coen by referral from her own counsel. Accordingly, says the plaintiff, what actually applies is the law of privilege, not Stainer v. Plaza.
 In my view it is improper to categorize the non-treating doctor or any other third party consultant retained on behalf of the plaintiff as a witness in which there is no property. The very fact that the plaintiff consulted with that physician or other individual during the course of litigation removes that individual from the “witness” category until such time as the plaintiff and counsel make a determination about whether or not that physician will be used as a witness at the trial, and preserves the right of privilege. The fact that the consulted doctor or other consultant never gives evidence preserves the privilege for all time unless waived by the plaintiff.
 While the defendant and third party submit they could have the plaintiff examined by their own doctor or proceed with an examination of the doctor pursuant to Rule 7-5, they complain that those alternatives are costly, and, accordingly, the court should assist them by ordering the records of Dr. Coen be produced and thus save them the cost of proceeding with the other alternatives. The defendant also submits that Rule 1-3 provides the court with sufficient justification to order Dr. Coen to provide his notes of the plaintiff’s examination.
 In my view, the defendant and third party have not shown any meritorious reason for abrogating the plaintiff’s litigation privilege related to the information obtained by Dr. Coen from the plaintiff as a result of the referral to Dr. Coen by the plaintiff’s solicitor. Nor, in my opinion, does Rule 1-3 provide justification for abrogating the privilege.
Concise reasons for judgement were recently released discussing the scope of document production limits under the New Rules of Court. In today’s case (RCL v. SCF) the Plaintiff was seeking damages following a motor vehicle collision. He had a history of emotional difficulties stemming in part from childhood abuse. He received counselling regarding this from the Elizabeth Fry Society. The Defendant requested a Court Order for production of these records.
 … The application is being brought under our new Rule 7-1(1). The relevancy test in the Supreme Court Rules has now narrowed to one of direct relevance, to use the words of the section, “to prove or disprove a material fact”, and it is no longer a chain of inquiry test related to any matter in question. I am not satisfied that these records will assist in proving any material fact.
 The defendant already knows that the plaintiff was abused as a child; that this event caused him emotional pain; that he attempted suicide; that he sought help from the Elizabeth Fry Society; that he missed work prior to the motor vehicle accident; and that he suffers from borderline personality disorder and depression. I also note a record that his brother passed away shortly before this accident. The defendant has obtained volumes of clinical records. I do not see how the detail of the counselling at Elizabeth Fry or the details of the abuse are going to add anything to the information they already have. It is clearly a request based on a chain of inquiry that there might be something relevant in those records.
The injury that would inure to the relationship by the disclosure of the communications must be greater than the benefit thereby gained for the correct disposal of the litigation.
I find there is great public interest in encouraging victims of abuse to seek counselling and to be assured of the confidentiality of that communication. The public interest is served if that confidentiality is fostered to the greatest possible degree.
 What of the interests of justice? Is the central issue in this case before me today in this lawsuit the same as might be contained in those records? I think not. There have already been several other sources outlining this plaintiff’s prior psychological problems. These records are at best peripherally related to the material issue. I am not convinced that in the interests of justice, I should breach that confidential relationship at all, not even to review those records myself and certainly not under this new narrow test for document production in our Rules of Court.
 So on that basis, I am denying the application.
In 2009 the BC Court of Appeal released reasons for judgement addressing the details necessary when listing privileged documents. The first reasons I’m aware of addressing this issue under the New Rules of Court were released this week by the BC Supreme Court, Vancouver Registry, demonstrating that the law remains unchanged.
The nature of any document for which privilege from production is claimed must be described in a manner that, without revealing information that is privileged, will enable other parties to assess the validity of the claim of privilege.
 The description in the list of documents is not sufficient to respond to that requirement.
 The defendants argue that the description that they have given on their list of documents is not materially different than the plaintiff’s own description. That may be. That application is not before me at the moment.
 It is hard to know in a given case how much description is required to answer the requirement in Rule 7-1(7) without revealing privileged information. It depends on the nature of the case and the nature of the document. In this case, I would expect most documents to be transactional documents. There may be other documents as well.
 As a minimum, in order to have any assessment of the validity of a claim of privilege, in the circumstances of this case, it seems to me that what is required to be described are four things: first, something about the nature of the communication, that is whether it is a letter or an e-mail or memorandum or something else; second, the date upon which it was created or sent; third and fourth, the author and the recipient. With that information, it may be possible for the plaintiff to assess the claim of privilege. There may be further disclosure that is necessary at that stage; I cannot tell.
 So that application will be allowed to that extent. The defendants will produce a more detailed list of privileged documents disclosing that information. The plaintiff will be at liberty to reapply for a better list, in order to challenge the claim of confidentiality.
As I’ve previously written, litigation privilege is a principle which allows parties in a law suit to keep evidence from the other side. In order to successfully take advantage of litigation privilege the document not only has to have been created in the reasonable contemplation of a lawsuit but also for the ‘dominant purpose‘ of use in such a lawsuit.
If a document was made for multiple reasons (ie – investigating a potential claim and defending against a potential claim) the law will likely require disclosure. Today the BC Court of Appeal released useful reasons summarizing this area of law.
If material comes into being for a dual purpose – one to find out the cause of the accident – the other to furnish information to the solicitor – it should be disclosed, because it is not then “wholly or mainly” for litigation. On this basis all the reports and inquiries into accidents – which are made shortly after the accident – should be disclosed on discovery and made available in evidence at the trial.
 Even in cases where litigation is in reasonable prospect from the time a claim first arises, there is bound to be a preliminary period during which the parties are attempting to discover the cause of the accident on which it is based. At some point in the information gathering process the focus of such an inquiry will shift such that its dominant purpose will become that of preparing the party for whom it was conducted for the anticipated litigation. In other words, there is a continuum which begins with the incident giving rise to the claim and during which the focus of the inquiry changes. At what point the dominant purpose becomes that of furthering the course of litigation will necessarily fall to be determined by the facts peculiar to each case.
 It was, on the evidence, open to the master to regard the notes as being made in the investigatory stage as opposed to the later litigation stage. They were made directly following Mr. Mathew’s accident. I recognize it may be argued that, in the circumstances, there was little in the way of an investigatory stage here. But that is a matter to be determined on the peculiar facts of each case and I am unable to accept that the evidence foreclosed the significance the master appears to have attached to the notes being made as quickly as they were in relation to the incident.
As I’ve previously written, litigation privilege is a principle which allows parties not to share relevant documents with the other side in a lawsuit in limited circumstances. Despite this principle, the BC Courts seem to be favouring the trend of disclosure making it more difficult for parties not to disclose documents after lawsuits get underway. Reasons for judgement were released last week demonstrating this trend.
In last week’s case (Beer v. Nickerson) the Plaintiff was injured in 2008 as a result of a slip and fall incident at a Pharmasave in Victoria, BC. The Plaintiff alleged the fall occurred as a result of the Defendant’s “negligent operation of her scooter in the store“.
The Defendant contacted her insurance company after the incident. The insurance company conducted an investigation and in the process of this obtained a statement from the Defendant, a drawing of the store prepared by the Defendants daughter, and photographs of the location of the incident.
1. The party withholding disclosure bears the onus of establishing a claim for privilege over a document.
(a) Was litigation a reasonable prospect at the time the document in dispute was created?
3. Litigation can properly be said to be in reasonable prospect when a reasonable person, possessed of all the pertinent information including that particular to one party or the other, would conclude that it is unlikely that the claim for loss will be resolved without it.
6. It is not incumbent upon the court to accept without question the opinion of either deponent on one of the very issues that is to be decided. Whether or not litigation was a reasonable prospect is a matter for the court to decide on all the evidence.
 To these principles I would add that the dominant purpose test is consistent with “the more contemporary trend favouring increased disclosure”: Blank v. Canada (Department of Justice), 2006 SCC 39 at paras. 60-61.
This case is helpful in permitting Plaintiffs to obtain more fulsome disclosure early in a lawsuit. Our Courts have made it clear that if documents are gathered by an insurance company for the purpose of investigating a claim (as opposed to defending a potential lawsuit) then these documents will have to be disclosed under the BC Supreme Court Rules.
Further to my previous posts on the topic of ICBC Claims and Privilege, reasons for judgement were released yesterday by the BC Supreme Court, New Westminster Registry, demonstrating that a party seeking to withhold documents on the basis of ‘litigation privilege’ may face an uphill battle.
In yesterday’s case (Celli v. White) the Plaintiff was a pedestrian who was struck by a vehicle. The Plaintiff was injured and eventually sued for damages. In the course of the lawsuit the Defendants refused to produce a number of documents relevant to the Plaintiff’s Claim on the basis that they were protected by ‘litigation privilege‘.
The Plaintiff obtained legal advice almost immediately after the accident. As a result of this the defence lawyers argued that “litigation was inevitable from the outset.” On this basis the Defendant refused to produce a number of documents which were gathered by the Defendant’s insurer in the immediate aftermath of this collision.
(2) If so, what was the dominant purpose for its production?
22. I am not aware of any case in which the meaning of “in reasonable prospect” has been considered by this Court. Common sense suggests that it must mean something more than a mere possibility, for such possibility must necessarily exist in every claim for loss due to injury whether that claim be advanced in tort or in contract. On the other hand, a reasonable prospect clearly does not mean a certainty, which could hardly ever be established unless a writ had actually issued. In my view litigation can properly be said to be in reasonable prospect when a reasonable person, possessed of all pertinent information including that peculiar to one party or the other, would conclude it is unlikely that the claim for loss will be resolved without it. The test is not one that will be particularly difficult to meet. I am satisfied it was met in this case in connection with all of the documents in issue. The circumstances of this accident, and the nature of Mr. Hamalainen’s injuries, were such that litigation was clearly a reasonable prospect from the time the claim was first reported on December 1st, 1986.
(b) What was the dominant purpose for which the documents were produced?
23. A more difficult question to resolve is whether the dominant purpose of the author, or the person under whose direction each document was prepared, was “… [to use] it or its contents in order to obtain legal advice or to conduct or aid in the conduct of litigation …”.
25. At the heart of the issue in the British Railways Board case was the fact that there was more than one identifiable purpose for the production of the report for which privilege was claimed. The result of the decision was to reject both the substantial purpose test previously adhered to by the English Court of Appeal and the sole purpose test which by then had been adopted by the majority of the Australian High Court in Grant v. Downs.
26. Even in cases where litigation is in reasonable prospect from the time a claim first arises, there is bound to be a preliminary period during which the parties are attempting to discover the cause of the accident on which it is based. At some point in the information gathering process the focus of such an inquiry will shift such that its dominant purpose will become that of preparing the party for whom it was conducted for the anticipated litigation. In other words, there is a continuum which begins with the incident giving rise to the claim and during which the focus of the inquiry changes. At what point the dominant purpose becomes that of furthering the course of litigation will necessarily fall to be determined by the facts peculiar to each case.
Privilege was claimed for a large number of documents. The grounds for it had to be established in respect of each one. By trying to extend to the whole list the considerations which confer privilege on most of the documents, the plaintiff has confused the issue and created the risk that, because it did not make in its evidence the distinctions that could have been made, it must be held not to have established privilege for any.
28. Furthermore, the affidavit material concentrated on the repetitious assertion by each deponent of his belief that litigation in the case was inevitable, from which fact the dominant purpose underlying the production of all documents was apparently assumed. As already pointed out that approach to the onus facing the deponent on this question represented a mistaken view of the law.
98. To establish “dominant purpose”, the party asserting the privilege will have to present evidence of the circumstances surrounding the creation of the communication or document in question, including evidence with respect to when it was created, who created it, who authorized it, and what use was or could be made of it. Care must be taken to limit the extent of the information that is revealed in the process of establishing “dominant purpose” to avoid accidental or implied waiver of the privilege that is being claimed.
61. While the solicitor-client privilege has been strengthened, reaffirmed and elevated in recent years, the litigation privilege has had, on the contrary, to weather the trend toward mutual and reciprocal disclosure which is the hallmark of the judicial process. In this context, it would be incongruous to reverse that trend and revert to a substantial purpose test.
In ordering that the Defendants produce the relevant documents the Court held that the dominant purpose of much of the defendants insurer’s early investigations was due to ‘adjusting‘ the potential claims as opposed to in response to anticipated ‘litigation‘.
Since ICBC is a monopoly insurer in British Columbia the analysis of the ‘adjusting‘ phase vs. the ‘litigation‘ stage will be triggered in most multi-party motor vehicle collisions. The lesson to be learned is that many documents which are gathered by ICBC in the early stages which may prove harmful to a Defendant if disclosed may not be protected by privilege if they were gathered by for the dominant purpose of determining how a collision occurred.

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