ICBC Law

As readers of this blog know I hate insurance fraud.  Sometimes fraudulent claims are weeded out through investigation efforts, other times fraudulent claimants unwittingly spy on themselves.

Today, ICBC reports another example of an individual ratting themselves out unwittingly through social media, in this case Facebook.  ICBC reports the following tale of insurance fraud undone through social media:

(the Claimant’s) troubles began when he rolled his vehicle on a rural road near Springhouse, a small community west of Williams Lake.

At the time, he was prohibited from driving so in order to collect insurance on the vehicle, which was a total loss, he convinced a friend to tell ICBC that she was the driver. At the time of the crash, three other people were in the vehicle and fortunately, no one suffered serious injuries.

The story came apart after ICBC’s special investigation unit (SIU) became aware that Joseph was bragging on his Facebook page that he had rolled his truck after drinking at a New Year’s Eve party and subsequently got a big payout from ICBC.

ICBC reports that the individual was ultimately criminally charged and penalized with a fine, a restitution order and a conditional sentence.

Controversial reasons for judgement were recently released by the The Court of Queen’s Bench of New Brunswick.  The Court required a Plaintiff in a personal injury lawsuit to preserve all contents on her Facebook homepage and have these produced.  While requiring Social Medial Data production is not necessarily unique, the way the Court required this evidence to be preserved will cause concern for many.

In the recent case (Sparks v. Dube) the Plaintiff was injured in a motor vehicle collision in Fredericton in 2008.  She hired a lawyer and sued for damages.  In the course of the lawsuit the defence lawyer brought a motion, without notifying the plaintiff’s lawyer, requesting personal information from the Plaintiff’s Facebook account.  The Court granted the motion and made the following contraversial orders:

1)  A Preservation Order and, in the alternative, an Interlocutory Injunction are hereby made and issued compelling Erica Sparks: 1) to preserve and maintain without deletions or alterations the entire contents of her personal Webpage(s) on the social network Facebook including but not limited to photographs, text, links, postings, event details and video clips until further direction of the court, and 2) to participate in the carrying out of the following orders where her participation is required;

2)  The Interlocutory Injunction shall expire ten days after these orders take effect instituted;

3)  The Applicant-Defendant shall personally and immediately serve all orders and a copy of this judgment upon the Plaintiff’s solicitor, Mr. James Crocco who shall not disclose any of the orders set out herein nor the contents of this judgment except on terms as they are allowed by these orders;

4)  Upon being served, Mr. James Crocco shall arrange for a solicitor in his firm or an agent lawyer of his choice to be appointed to carry out as soon as reasonably possible, and in the case of the Interlocutory Injunction within ten days of the taking effect of these orders, the orders set out that pertain to his client Erica Sparks subject to the following terms:

a)  The appointed solicitor shall be remunerated by the Defendant for his or her services;

b)  That solicitor shall immediately contact Ms. Sparks and, without disclosing the nature of the subject matter to be discussed, schedule a meeting with her at a location convenient to access and download data from the Internet and reduce it to usable form, such as hard copy for data so suited or memory stick or other such device for videos, as soon as reasonably practicable;

c)  Upon personally meeting with Erica Sparks at the location chosen the appointed solicitor shall apprise her of the terms and conditions of the Preservation Order and Interlocutory Injunction as well as the other orders contained herein that pertain to her;

d)  Immediately upon disclosure of the terms and conditions of the orders set out, Erica Sparks, in the presence of the solicitor engaged, shall create a permanent tangible records in hard copy, wherever possible, or to other suitable device, of the entire contents of her Webpage(s) on Facebook including, but not limited to, all photographs, text and links and shall record by a memory stick or other suitable device any videos posted or linked to Erica’s Sparks’ Webpage, one copy of which shall be sealed upon the carrying out of that part of these orders and delivered to Mr. James Crocco to be held and preserved by him until further direction of the court; but the delivering of a sealed copy of the entirety of her Webpage(s) shall not operate to preclude Erica Sparks from providing her counsel, Mr. James Crocco, or anyone else of her choosing with a copy of the entirety of her Webpage(s) in order to prepare for the Production Hearing or further proceedings;

5)  Upon complying with the said orders the solicitor appointed to supervise the downloading of the material referred to herein shall immediately review all of the material downloaded to ensure that the orders have been carried out in full and shall then certify to the court in writing that there has been strict compliance with the orders contained herein, and that the sealed packet represents the entire contents of the Facebook Webpage(s) of Erica Sparks as well as videos posted or linked to it or them;

6)  Upon the successful execution of the orders set out herein and the execution of the certification of strict compliance with the orders contained herein by the solicitor appointed to supervise the downloading of the material referred to herein  Erica Sparks shall be free to resume unrestricted access to her Webpage(s) on Facebook including its substantive composition;

7)  The Motion begun on December 9, 2011 shall be adjourned to a date to be fixed by the Clerk of the Court of Queen’s Bench for the Judicial District of Woodstock;

8)  The Defendant shall then file with this court and serve on the Plaintiff, in timely fashion, a Notice of Motion for the production and disclosure of the contents of the sealed packet of information/data;

9)  Once a date for a Production Hearing has been set Mr. James Crocco shall bring to that hearing the sealed packet of data retrieved from the Facebook Webpage(s) of Erica Sparks pursuant to the orders contained herein;

10)                     Upon completion of the execution of the orders contained herein, that apply to the retrieval of the entire contents of Erica Spark’s Facebook Webpage(s) on the terms as set out in these orders, the temporary oral sealing order sealing the entire file and court record in this matter that was imposed on December 9, 2010 at the conclusion of the ex partehearing shall be lifted without further order of the court.

11)                     The Plaintiff shall upon execution of these orders and the holding of a Production Hearing, in timely fashion, file a further and better Affidavit of Documents;

I understand that this order is being appealed and look forward to the New Brunswick Court of Appeal’s views on this matter.  While there are cases requiring Plaintiffs to produce social media data in personal injury lawsuits in BC, I am not aware of any cases in this Province going as far as the above decision.  Arguably the New BC Rules of Court focus on proportionality, narrower document disclosure obligations, and general prohibition of “fishing expeditions” in discovery of documents would prevent such an order from being granted in BC.

(Update: The below decision was upheld by the BC Court of Appeal in December, 2011)

As I’ve previously written, the BC Privacy Act allows individuals to sue where their privacy is violated “wilfully and without a claim of right” by another person.  This powerful law permits such lawsuits to succeed even where a Plaintiff cannot prove actual damages.

Despite the strength of the BC Privacy Act, relatively few reported decisions have been released applying this law in the years that it has been on the books.  Useful reasons for judgement were released today by the BC Supreme Court, New Westminster Registry, applying this law in combination with a claim for damages for defamation.

In today’s case (Nesbitt v. Neufeld) the Plaintiff and Defendant were involved in “protracted family litigation” During the course of that litigation one of the parties “resorted to out-of-court publications that are plainly private to the litigants“.  The reasons for judgement are worth reviewing in full for the details but these apparently included “private communications…released to third parties and made available to the public (including)…a YouTube video…a website…a Facebook Page…(and) a letter to the Ministry of Child and Family Development”

The victim sued arguing she was defamed and further that her privacy rights were unreasonably violated.  Mr. Justice Crawford agreed and awarded the Plaintiff $40,000 in damages.   In reaching this award the Court provided the following reasons:

[89]         The B.C. Court of Appeal in Davis v. McArthur (1970), 17 D.L.R. (3d) 760, [1970] B.C.J. No. 664 (QL) (C.A.), said this in the course of its judgment at para. 9 of QL:

To constitute the tort [of violation of privacy] the violation must be committed “wilfully and without a claim of right”. The nature and degree of privacy to which the person is entitled in any situation or in relation to any matter is fully set out in s-s (2) [now ss. 1(2) and 1(3)] and, in my opinion, no useful purpose would be served in attempting to elaborate upon the words contained therein. Regard must be had to the provisions of the subsection as a whole. It is plain that whether there has been a violation of privacy of another must be decided on the particular facts of each case. As the learned Judge below said in his reasons for judgment [10 D.L.R. (3d) 250 at p. 255, 72 W.W.R. 69]: “It is necessary to consider all of the circumstances before determining ‘The nature and degree of privacy to which a person is entitled,’ s. 2(2) [now ss. 1(2) and 1(3)].

[90]         In Hollinsworth v. BCTV, a division of Westcom T.V. Group Ltd. (1999), 59 B.C.L.R. (3d) 121, 113 B.C.A.C. 304, the Court of Appeal defined the term “wilfully” to mean “an intention to do an act which the person doing the act knew or should have known would violate the privacy of another person” (at para. 29 of B.C.L.R.).

[91]         Dr. Nesbitt’s use of the private correspondence between Ms. Neufeld and Ms. X was a deliberate act that violated Ms. Neufeld’s privacy. The communications were extremely personal…

[96] Had Dr. Nesbitt restricted his communications within the confines of the family court litigation where he had counsel to advise him of the bounds of legitimate expression of his opinions, the issues before me in this proceeding might not have arisen. I say “might” because I note that certain publications of Dr. Nesbitt prompted an application to the family court that resulted in a consent order made on September 8, 2008 before Master Caldwell restraining Dr. Nesbitt from making further improper communications…

[102] The reality is that Dr. Nesbitt has taken his battle with Ms. Neufeld over custody and access far outside the ordinary confines of the family court litigation. Even worse his lack of appreciation for the proper boundaries of communication of his opinions has spread to besmirch persons that are friends of Ms. Neufeld.

[103] Dr. Nesbitt disclosed matters private to the parties in a manner that defamed Ms. Neufeld; he is the publisher of the defamatory materials at issue.

[104] For breach of privacy and the defamation aspects of the defendant’s claim, I set that amount at $40,000.

[105] I only limit the defamation damages due to the fact that while it is plainly publication to the world in the sense the defamatory materials were put on the Internet, Ms. Neufeld indicated there has been little personal or professional backlash. Indeed, if I read between the lines, the communications to the Rotary Club, the Ministry and the Child’s doctor were treated with the disdain they deserved.

The Court went on to award the victim ’special costs’ in order to rebuke the other parties ‘reprehensible conduct‘.  The ease created by social media platforms in allowing individuals to quickly publish material to the Internet will likely make claims such as these more prevalent in the years to come.  With this, damage awards for privacy violations will hopefully be shaped into predictable ranges.

It’s a not so well-kept secret that Insurance Companies often hire private investigators to conduct video surveillance of people involved in personal injury claims.  Sometimes the efforts pay off in uncovering a fraudulent claim.  More often than not hours of bland video are produced doing little more than intruding on the privacy of an injured plaintiff.

These days, however, private investigators may play less of a role as many Plaintiffs are doing the surveillance work themselves. That’s right, Plaintiffs spy on themselves and hand the goods right over to the Insurance Company.

I’m talking about the liberal use of social media, specifically YouTube.  When you or a friend make a film and post it on YouTube chances are the video will be of better quality and give more intimate access to your life than anything a Private Investigator can put together.  PI’s often film from the bushes, a van or other less than ideal locations.  The videos produced are often grainy, distant and of poor quality.  Most videos uploaded to YouTube, on the other hand, are up close and personal.  These videos can give a lot of insight into a person’s life.

Whether or not these videos are damaging to your claim insurance companies are viewing them.  This information can either be directly used against you or will give the insurance company further avenues to pursue in trying to damage your personal injury claim.

The reality is that insurance companies are effectively using social media and uncovering a gold-mine of useful information in the process.  As I’ve previously written, the mere mention of ICBC on twitter will immediately bring you to their attention.  If you’re using social media be aware that your audience is bigger than you intend.

If you are making an ICBC Personal Injury Claim and if you use social media such as Twitter ICBC is probably watching you.

You may be asking yourself ‘how can ICBC find my tweets if they’re not one of my followers?‘.  The answer is simple, ICBC monitors the phrase ‘ICBC’ and each time these letters are used the tweet comes to their attention whether they are one of your followers or not.  Want proof?  Here’s a recent exchange demonstrating this use in action.

An individual made an ICBC claim and posted the following on Twitter:

ICBC quickly responded to this individual as follows:

ICBC was not a follower of this indvidual and he was surprised that ICBC saw his tweet as can be seen from the following reply:

From a customer service standpoint this is probably good stratgy by ICBC.  If a customer is unhappy respond and see if you can help.  I have nothing critical to say about this.  However, from an injury claims perspective, people need to know that their social media use is being monitored perhaps by people they don’t want watching them.

I don’t write this post to scare you from using social media or even to discourage you from discussing your ICBC claim on-line.  You need to be aware, however, that your audience can be bigger then you expect.