Source: http://bc-injury-law.com/blog/tag/master-caldwell
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 14:51:30+00:00

Document:
Reasons for judgement were released today by the BC Supreme Court, New Westminster Registry, ordering a plaintiff to disclose the results of a private MRI to defendants.
 On the material before me I am unable to agree with plaintiff counsel’s assertion of litigation privilege or solicitor’s brief privilege. It appears clear on the material that the MRI was requested by Dr. Fernandes as part of his course of investigation and treatment of the plaintiff for injuries resulting from the motor vehicle accident; he then obtained the results and referred the plaintiff to a specialist for further assistance in diagnosis and treatment. Dr. Mutat was a treating doctor at the time this took place and only took on the role of expert at a later date when approached by plaintiff’s counsel.
 In the result, the MRI disk is producible and is ordered produced; it came into existence for diagnostic and treatment purposes at the request of Dr. Fernandes, not for litigation purposes at the instance of plaintiff’s counsel. In this regard it would seem that the cost of the MRI will be addressable as a special damage matter relating to medically necessary investigation and treatment rather than as a disbursement in the litigation however that will remain to be determined in the fullness of time.
Reasons for judgement were released this week by the BC Supreme Court, Chilliwack Registry, ordering that the name and statement of a witness be disclosed in the course of litigation.
 The remaining issue involves a statement provided to Ms. Freestone by an unnamed individual on April 11, 2012. According to Ms. Freestone, she was contacted by this person who claimed to have information regarding the plaintiff and her claim. An interview was arranged and a transcript created. The defence now claims that the interview was done and the statement created solely for the purpose of litigation.
 There is no property in a witness, particularly a lay witness. Based upon the material before me, the individual has potentially relevant, potentially controversial information, about the plaintiff and her claim. The statement provided by this lay witness may well form an important part of cross examination. Failure to disclose such a statement denies plaintiff the opportunity to investigate the allegations contained therein and to challenge the veracity and motives of the informant.
 No authority was cited to me to support the defence position of privilege as regards the statement and the identity of the witness.
 The defendants are ordered to produce to counsel for the plaintiff an unredacted copy of the statement dated April 11, 2012 which has been listed as privileged item 4.3 of the defendants’ List of Documents.
In 2009 the BC Court of Appeal made it clear that the BC Supreme Court has no authority to make a stand-alone order for an advance payment of damages and any advance payment order must piggy-back another order relying on Rule 13-1(19).
When faced with an order adjourning an injury trial where liability is admitted that is a good time to seek an advance payment order. If, for whatever reason such an order cannot be spoken to at the time of adjournment, it is a good practice to seek leave that as part of the adjournment a plaintiff has permission to bring an advance payment application at a later time. Such a practice was demonstrated in reasons for judgement released this week by the BC Supreme Court, New Westminster Registry.
1] The plaintiff applies for an advance of $35,000 on his claim for damages relating to a motor vehicle accident which occurred on August 16, 2008 and for costs thrown away as a result of the adjournment.
 Master Keighley considered the issue of the jurisdiction to order an advance other than as a term of an adjournment in the case of Cikojevic v. Timm, 2007 BCSC 1689 and found that such jurisdiction does exist. In addition, I rely upon the order of Fitzpatrick J. which expressly granted the plaintiff liberty to make such application in this particular case.
 The court has a discretionary authority to order that an advance be paid but such order should only be made in special circumstances and only if the judge or master is satisfied that there is no possibility that the ultimate award of damages will be less than the amount of the advance: see Serban v. Casselman,  B.C.J. No. 254 (B.C.C.A.) and Cikojevic v. Timm, 2008 BCSC 74. Two of the considerations which the court must address are the length of time which will pass until trial and whether the delay will cause the plaintiff financial hardship: see O’Ruairc v. Pelletier, 2002 BCSC 1107 and Cikojevic.
A decision was recently publshed by the BC Supreme Court website addressing reasonable photocopy disbursements in an ICBC Claim. Although it is a 2006 decision decided under the old rules, the Court’s comments remain relevant finding that commercial photocopy charges are not helpful when deciding a reasonable rate to charge for photocopy disbursements due to litigant privacy concerns.
5] There is also information in here about photocopying through commercial endeavours. There are privacy concerns related there and I take counsel’s point, but again the physical cost of copying in those facilities seems to run between five cents and 10 or 11 cents per page.
 Making allowance for in-house copying at a reasonable rate to meet the obligations of privacy and confidentiality, given the costs as I seem to have limited information here in the material relating to equipment, I am not able to indicate or to determine on the material provided by the plaintiff that their costs exceed 30 cents a page. The rate set will be 30 cents per page.
You can click here to access more recent caselaw addressing photocopy disbursements.
Two useful, albeit unreported, cases were recently provided to me dealing with objections to two fairly common examination for discovery questions and dealing with their propriety.
do you have any facts known or knowable to you that relate in any way to whatever injuries Mr. Blackley received in this collision?
do you have any facts known or knowable to you that relate in any way to what pain or suffering Mr. Blackley has had because of this collision?
 Speaking generally, in this case, I do not find that the questions asked at the examination for discovery are improper. They can be said to have been substantially informed by the statement of defence that was filed by the defendant. As is usual, that statement of defence is replete with denials and positings of other alternative propositions.
 The examination for discovery conducted by plaintiff’s counsel was obviously shaped in part as a response to the pleadings of the defendant and was an appropriate use of the examination process, specifically to discovery the defendant’s case.
In the second decision (Evans v. Parsons) the Defendant put a medico-legal report to the Plaintiff and asked the broad (and arguably compound) question “Okay. Was there — the facts in Dr. Aiken’s report, was there anything that struck you as incorrect?“. The Plaintiff’s lawyer objected to the question resulting in a chambers application. The Defendant argued the question was fair and further that the limited two hour discovery in Rule 15 matters allowed this type of a short cut question.
All right. Thank you. Applications to have a subsequent examination for discovery done specifically to address what I do find as an extremely general and vague question which was asked and objected to at the first discovery. That comment probably leads one to surmise the application will be dismissed, at it will. There was an opportunity to specify what facts were being referred to, and counsel refused to further qualify. There’s a reason for short discoveries in rule 15-1 cases. Two hours were granted. If this was an important question, it could have been addressed earlier in the discovery. I don’t, in the circumstances of the context of the question, believe it to have been a fair question to the plaintiff. It was far too general, and, as I say, defence counsel refused the opportunity to further qualify or narrow it. I’m not going to force the Plaintiff to answer such a general question. Application is dismissed. Costs to the Plaintiff.
To my knowledge these judgements are not yet publicly available. As always, I’m happy to provide a copy to anyone who contacts me and requests copies.
As previously discussed, when injured by the fault of an unidentified motorist in BC, a Plaintiff can sue ICBC directly for damages in place of the unknown motorist provided section 24 of the Insurance (Vehicle) Act is complied with.
After a lawsuit starts, if the unknown motorist becomes known then the Plaintiff can substitute the appropriate party. Reasons for judgement were released today by the BC Supreme Court, Vancouver Registry, dealing with such an application and, interestingly, denying it alleging the Plaintiff failed to identify the appropriate party in a timely fashion.
In this week’s case (Turnbull v. ICBC) the Plaintiff was allegedly injured when struck by a customer at his store. The Plaintiff failed to properly record the licence plate information of the motorist. The Plaintiff sued ICBC and as the litigation progressed the Plaintiff believed he was able to identify the offending motorist through employment records identifying the correct licence plate of the vehicle alleged to be involved.
 In the present case, the plaintiff knew of the existence of documentation which would have identified potential defendants at the time of and at all times following the alleged incident. The plaintiff retained counsel shortly after the incident. The plaintiff and his counsel were aware well before the expiry of the limitation period that identification of the vehicle and driver was a central and important issue in the claim. No application was made during the limitation period, or even during the year following the expiry of the limitation period, to pursue the documents which the plaintiff knew existed and knew might well identify the vehicle and the driver.
 In short the plaintiff, and the plaintiff alone, bears the responsibility for the failure to identify potential defendants in a timely fashion and certainly within two years of the incident plus one year to serve. In such circumstances, if limitation periods are to have any meaning and effect in our system, the interests of justice and the potential prejudice to the intended defendant outweigh the interests of the plaintiff.
This lack of duty when seeking to substitute parties under s. 24(6) should not be confused with a Plaintiff’s duty to continue to make all reasonable efforts to ascertain the identity of the unknown motorist to maintain a section 24 action against ICBC through to trial.
I understand that the above decision is under appeal and if further reasons are issued addressing this I will provide an appropriate update to this post.

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