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Medical Record Relevance To Be Determined on Entry by Entry Basis

Written by admin on . Posted in BCSC Civil Rule 7, Uncategorized.


Reasons for judgement were published last week by the BC Supreme Court, Vancouver Registry, finding that in the context of personal injury claims, the relevance of clinical records should be determined on an entry by entry basis.
In last week’s case (Hyvarinen v. Burdett) the Plaintiff claimed permanent physical disability as a result of a 2008 collision.  In the course of the litigation the Defendant requested various records the Plaintiff refused to produce.  A court application was brought resulting in mixed success with some of the withheld documents being ordered to be produced.  In adjudicating the matter Master MacNaughton provided the following sensible reasons addressing the vetting of irrelevent medical records:

[18] While I accept that when a document is produced by a party, it should generally be produced in its entirety, the exception is where a party is able to establish a good reason for a document not to be produced. In North American Trust Co. v. Mercer International Inc. (2000) 71 B.C.L.R. (3d) 73 (BCSC), Justice Lowry, then of this court, reiterated the general principle but said:

…But where what is clearly not relevant is by its nature such that there is good reason why it should not be disclosed, a litigant may be excused from having to make a disclosure that will in no way serve to resolve the issues. In controlling its process, the court will not permit one party to take unfair advantage or to create undue embarrassment by requiring another to disclose part of a document that could cause considerable harm but serve no legitimate purposes in resolving the issues. (para. 13)

[19] In this case, there are two reasons why the general rule about redacted documents should not apply. The first is because the documents sought in unredacted form are not, although generally listed as such, single documents. Rather, they are a series of records compiled over time from a number of interactions with the plaintiff. These records should not be approached globally as if they were a single document. Each entry requires a separate analysis as to whether it may prove or disprove a material fact or relate to a matter in a question in this action.

[20] Second, and importantly in this case, the court must be careful not to unnecessarily infringe on the plaintiff’s privacy interests. Recently, in Kaladjian v. Jose, 2012 BCSC 357, Justice Davies reiterated the importance of a plaintiff’s privacy interests in a personal injury action. He said:

Every individual’s health and the medical treatment of it is a personal and private matter that should not be lightly interfered with. In today’s world of medical specialization, disclosure of even the name of a medical professional consulted by an individual for reasons wholly unrelated to a defence plea of a prior existing condition is an unwarranted and unnecessary invasion of privacy. (para. 75)

The Limits of Clinical Records in Injury Litigation

Written by admin on . Posted in Civil Procedure, Uncategorized. 96 Comments on The Limits of Clinical Records in Injury Litigation


(Update March 8, 2012 – the below reasoning was upheld by the BC Court of Appelal in reasons for judgement released today.  You can find the BC Court of Appeal’s Reasons here)
When an injury claimant attends examination for discovery or trial they are usually subjected to an extensive cross-examination with respect to matters contained in clinical records.  These records contain a host of information including dates of doctors visits, complaints made, diagnoses given, treatments recommended and the course of recovery of injuries.
Despite this volume of information clinical records do have limitations with respect to their use at trial.  Reasons for judgement were released today by the BC Supreme Court, Vancouver Registry, discussing these.
In today’s case (Edmondson v. Payer) the Plaintiff was involved in a 2005 BC motor vehicle collision.  The Plaintiff sustained various soft tissue injuries involving her neck with associated headaches.  The Defendant argued that the injuries were minor and that the Plaintiff lacked credibility.  In support of their argument the Defendant relied heavily on various entries contained in the Plaintiff’s clinical records.
Mr. Justice Smith rejected the Defendant’s argument and awarded the Plaintiff $40,000 for non-pecuniary damages (money for pain and suffeirng and loss of enjoyment of life).  In doing so the Court provided the following useful reasons addressing the use of clinical records in injury litigation:
[23] Much of the defendant’s submission on the plaintiff’s credibility flows from what is, or is not, found in the clinical records of doctors the plaintiff has seen.  It is therefore important to review the limited purposes for which clinical records are admissible.  It is easy to lose sight of those limitations in cases of this kind, where the time spent parsing a single note made by a doctor often far exceeds the length of the medical appointment that the note records…

[34]         The difficulty with statements in clinical records is that, because they are only a brief summary or paraphrase, there is no record of anything else that may have been said and which might in some way explain, expand upon or qualify a particular doctor’s note.  The plaintiff will usually have no specific recollection of what was said and, when shown the record on cross-examination, can rarely do more than agree that he or she must have said what the doctor wrote.

[35]         Further difficulties arise when a number of clinical records made over a lengthy period are being considered.  Inconsistencies are almost inevitable because few people, when asked to describe their condition on numerous occasions, will use exactly the same words or emphasis each time.  As Parrett J. said in Burke-Pietramala v. Samad, 2004 BCSC 470, at paragraph 104:

…the reports are those of a layperson going through a traumatic and difficult time and one for which she is seeing little, if any, hope for improvement. Secondly, the histories are those recorded by different doctors who may well have had different perspectives and different perceptions of what is important. … I find little surprising in the variations of the plaintiff’s history in this case, particularly given the human tendency to reconsider, review and summarize history in light of new information.

[36]         While the content of a clinical record may be evidence for some purposes, the absence of a record is not, in itself, evidence of anything.  For example, the absence of reference to a symptom in a doctor’s notes of a particular visit cannot be the sole basis for any inference about the existence or non-existence of that symptom.  At most, it indicates only that it was not the focus of discussion on that occasion.

[37]         The same applies to a complete absence of a clinical record.  Except in severe or catastrophic cases, the injury at issue is not the only thing of consequence in the plaintiff’s life.  There certainly may be cases where a plaintiff’s description of his or her symptoms is clearly inconsistent with a failure to seek medical attention, permitting the court to draw adverse conclusions about the plaintiff’s credibility.  But a plaintiff whose condition neither deteriorates nor improves is not obliged to constantly bother busy doctors with reports that nothing has changed, particularly if the plaintiff has no reason to expect the doctors will be able to offer any new or different treatment.  Similarly, a plaintiff who seeks medical attention for unrelated conditions is not obliged to recount the history of the accident and resulting injury to a doctor who is not being asked to treat that injury and has no reason to be interested in it.

[38]         The introduction of clinical records cannot be used to circumvent the requirements governing expert opinion evidence set out in Rule 11-6 of the Supreme Court Civil Rules, B.C. Reg. 168/ 2009 [Rules].  A medical diagnosis?and the reasoning that led to the diagnosis?is a matter of expert opinion. Clinical records are admissible for the fact that a diagnosis was made, but the court cannot accept the diagnosis as correct in the absence of proper opinion evidence to that effect.  Depending on the facts and issues in a particular case, the mere fact that a diagnosis was made may or may not be relevant.

[39]         Clinical records may provide the assumed facts on which an expert may offer an opinion, including diagnosis.  For example, statements made by the plaintiff and recorded in clinical records at various times may be relied on by a defence expert in concluding that the plaintiff’s current symptoms are the result of a condition that pre-dated the accident.  That does not mean that the court can itself use clinical records to arrive at a medical diagnosis in the absence of expert opinion.

[40]         Some of the defendant’s submissions must now be considered in light of these principles.

BC Court of Appeal Clarifies Law of Hearsay Evidence in Expert Reports

Written by admin on . Posted in BCSC Civil Rule 11, Civil Procedure, Uncategorized. 127 Comments on BC Court of Appeal Clarifies Law of Hearsay Evidence in Expert Reports


Expert reports often contain hearsay evidence.  This is especially true in personal injury cases where expert witnesses review pages upon pages of clinical notes of other physicians in arriving at their opinions.  Today the BC Court of Appeal released useful reasons for judgement confirming that hearsay evidence does not render an expert report inadmissible.  The Court further noted that some types of hearsay evidence in expert reports, even if not independently proven at trial, does not necessarily nullify the experts opinion.
In today’s case (Mazur v. Lucas) the Plaintiff was injured in a 2006 BC motor vehicle collision.  At trial the Plaintiff tendered the report of a psychiatrist.  The trial judge ordered that hearsay portions of the report be redacted and did not permit opposing counsel to cross examine the expert with respect to the redacted portions of the report.  Ultimately the Jury awarded the Plaintiff $528,400 in damages.
The Defendant appealed arguing that the trial judge incorrectly redacted hearsay from the expert reports and unreasonably restricted the cross-examination.  The BC High Court agreed and ordered a new trial.  In doing so the Court repeated the following very useful quote from Mr. Justice Sopinka addressing the reality of hearsay in medical diagnosis:
“A physician, for example, daily determines questions of immense importance on the basis of the observations of colleagues, often in the form of second- or third-hand hearsay.  For a court to accord no weight to, or to exclude, this sort of professional judgment, arrived at in accordance with sound medical practices, would be to ignore the strong circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness that surround it, and would be, in my view, contrary to the approach this Court has taken to the analysis of hearsay evidence in general, exemplified in Ares v. Venner, [1970] S.C.R. 608”
The BC Court of Appeal went on to provide the following useful summary of hearsay evidence in expert reports in personal injury lawsuits:

[40]         From these authorities, I would summarize the law on this question as to the admissibility of expert reports containing hearsay evidence as follows:

·                 An expert witness may rely on a variety of sources and resources in opining on the question posed to him.  These may include his own intellectual resources, observations or tests, as well as his review of other experts’ observations and opinions, research and treatises, information from others – this list is not exhaustive.  (See Bryant, The Law of Evidence in Canada, at 834-835)

·                 An expert may rely on hearsay.  One common example in a personal injury context would be the observations of a radiologist contained in an x-ray report.  Another physician may consider it unnecessary to view the actual x-ray himself, preferring to rely on the radiologist’s report.

·                 The weight the trier of fact ultimately places on the opinion of the expert may depend on the degree to which the underlying assumptions have been proven by other admissible evidence.  The weight of the expert opinion may also depend on the reliability of the hearsay, where that hearsay is not proven by other admissible evidence.  Where the hearsay evidence (such as the opinion of other physicians) is an accepted means of decision making within that expert’s expertise, the hearsay may have greater reliability.

·                 The correct judicial response to the question of the admissibility of hearsay evidence in an expert opinion is not to withdraw the evidence from the trier of fact unless, of course, there are some other factors at play such that it will be prejudicial to one party, but rather to address the weight of the opinion and the reliability of the hearsay in an appropriate self-instruction or instruction to a jury.

[41]         The common law is supplemented by the Rules of Court concerning expert reports.  The Rules of Court in force at the time of this trial required an expert to state “the facts and assumptions upon which the opinion is based”.  (Rule 40A(5)(b)).  Rule 11-6(1) which replaces Rule 40A requires the expert to state:

…

(f) the expert’s reasons for his or her opinion, including

(i)  a description of the factual assumptions on which the opinion is based,

(ii)  a description of any research conducted by the expert that led him or her to form the opinion, and

(iii)  a list of every document, if any, relied on by the expert in forming the opinion.

[42]         New Rule 11-6 expands on what an expert was required to state under old Rule 40A, but does not alter the general principle that it is essential for the trier of fact to know the basis of an expert opinion so that the opinion can be evaluated.  The Rule has a dual purpose.  The second purpose is to allow the opposing party to know the basis of the expert’s opinion so that they or their counsel can properly prepare for, and conduct, cross-examination of the expert, and if appropriate, secure a responsive expert opinion.  Thus, the result of these reasons would be the same if this case had arisen under the new Rules.  There is nothing in these Rules touching directly on the question of the admissibility of hearsay evidence in expert reports.

I have previously written (here and here) that Plaintiff’s need to be wary if relying on a radiologists findings in support of a personal injury claim at trial and ensure that the evidence is independently proven at trial.  Today’s case appears to potentially soften this requirement somewhat.

ICBC Injury Claims and Lack of Continuous Medical Complaints

Written by admin on . Posted in ICBC Chronic Pain Cases, ICBC Soft Tissue Injury Cases.


Individuals who suffer long-term chronic pain following a motor vehicle collision often attend frequently for treatment to their general practitioner.   These visits generate ‘clinical records‘ which generally document the patients complaints.
These clinical records are usually produced in the course of a subsequent personal injury lawsuit.  ICBC defence lawyers scrutinize these records and see if they can poke a hole in the Plaintiff’s case.  A common tactic is to review these records and see if the Plaintiff complains of the same symptoms at each and every visit.  If not, ICBC may argue that the Plaintiff recovered since there is a lack of continuous complaint.  So, does this mean an injured Plaintiff should make sure they discuss their accident related complaints each and every time they see their doctor?  The answer is no and reasons for judgement were released this week by the BC Supreme Court, Vancouver Registry, discussing some of the reasons why this is not necessary.
In this week’s case (Van Den Hemel v. Kugathasan) the Plaintiff was injured in two motor vehicle collisions in 2006.  She was not at fault for either and the trial focused on the value of her ICBC claims.   During the course of trial ICBC’s lawyer argued that the Plaintiff was not credible and that her in Court testimony of chronic pain was contradicted by “temporal gaps” in the Plaintiff’s doctors clinical records.  Mr. Justice Stewart was quick to dismiss this attack and provided the following useful comments in response to the Defendant’s argument:

[9]             Another wing of the defendants’ attack on the plaintiff’s testimonial reliability – more particularly sincerity – focused on what the defendants say is the disparity between the plaintiff’s telling me, in effect, that her pain and suffering in the neck, shoulders and back has been present, persistent and continuous since the first motor vehicle accident in April 2006 and what the defendants describe as telling temporal gaps in what the plaintiff complained of when she was seen by her family doctor, Dr. Sun, over the years.

[10]         The plaintiff, in effect, told me that on any given occasion when she saw Dr. Sun and had her few minutes in the examining room that she went straight to only what was her most significant problem or complaint that day. I accept that. It makes sense in light of how our medical system functions today. Also I infer from the whole of Dr. Sun’s testimony that it was her practice to let the patient take the initiative and that she did not invite the patient to lodge a bill of complaints. Last, I note that – as will become clear later in these Reasons for Judgment – throughout the four years in question in the case at bar the plaintiff has been a woman beset with a myriad of problems for which she sought help or advice from caregivers, only some of which were neck, back and shoulder problems.

Mr. Justice Stewart went on to award the Plaintiff $75,000 in non-pecuniary damages for her accident related injuries.  This case is also worth reviewing in full for the Court’s lengthy discussion of Plaintiff “credibility” and “testimonial reliability” which is set out at paragraphs 5-17.

More on Medical Records, Document Production and Privilege in ICBC Injury Claims

Written by admin on . Posted in Civil Procedure, independent medical exams, Uncategorized. 47 Comments on More on Medical Records, Document Production and Privilege in ICBC Injury Claims

Useful reasons for judgement were released today by the BC Supreme Court dealing with the records that need to be disclosed to opposing counsel following an Independent Medico-Legal Exam.
In today’s case (Gulamani v. Chandra) the Plaintiff was involved in 2 motor vehicle accidents approximately one decade apart. In the course of the lawsuits she attended various medico-legal appointments at the request of the Defence Lawyers under Rule 30 of the BC Supreme Court Rules.
Following these the Plaintiff’s lawyer brought an application that  these doctors deliver “copies of their examining notes or any other recording generated by or on behalf of the said doctors that record any history given to them by the plaintiff on the examination, and any notes that record the doctor’s observations or findings on physical examination together with copies of any tests, questionnaires, or other documents completed by or on behalf of the plaintiff including scoring documents prepared by the examiner“.
The Defence lawyers opposed this motion and argued that the sought materials “constitute the doctors’ working papers and underlying materials that are privileged and part of the solicitor’s brief until the doctor testifies in court, at which point the privilege is waived. ”
Madam Justice Arnold-Bailey rejected the defence position and noted that “solicitor’s brief privilege can be trumped when it comes to the bare facts” and that “there is no property in a witness of fact”.  In ordering production of the sought records the Court extensively canvassed the law in this area and summarized its position as follows:

[24]         Stainer and Traynor clearly indicate that any notes, annotations, recordings, or working papers that reveal an examining doctor’s confidential opinion or advice to counsel will, generally, be privileged.  Even things as small as question marks or exclamation marks added to raw test data could fall into this category and would potentially need to be redacted:Traynor, at para. 21.

[25]         However, the cases also illustrate that notes or recordings that capture the factual history given by the plaintiff to an examining doctor, as well as raw test data and results, are outside the scope of solicitor-client privilege and are subject to production.  I agree with the conclusion reached by the learned master in McLeod as one that follows these basic principles and extends them to circumstances outside the scope of a Rule 30 order. General principles are indeed just that – general principles – and not principles that are only to be applied in making a Rule 30 order or only to be applied when such an order is made.  As Master Caldwell opined in McLeod, the timing of the request for disclosure and whether a court order triggered the examination are factors which do not override the application of Rule 1(5) and the court’s role to “secure the just, speedy and inexpensive determination of every proceeding on its merits”.  I share this view.

[26]         I do not disagree with the submission by counsel for the Chandra defendants, in line with S. & K. Processors and Vancouver Community College, that an expert’s working papers remain privileged until that expert takes the witness stand.  As I understand the jurisprudence, however, there is a clear distinction between an expert’s working papers, which contain opinions, or which may be prepared for the sole purpose of advising counsel, and the facts underlying those opinions or advice.  In the case at bar, the plaintiff is not asking for the type of documents that were at issue in those cases, and those cases reaffirm that the factual material the plaintiff seeks is indeed subject to production.

[27]         The Sutherland case is perhaps, at first blush, most problematic for the plaintiff, in that it appears to imply that the only factual material requiring disclosure will be that which is not already adequately set out in the written statement accompanying the expert report (in the context of Rule 40A).  As I have indicated above, however, upon further analysis I do not believe the case stands for this point.  The court in Sutherland could not find that giving notice under Rule 40A meant that everything underlying the report was suddenly subject to production before the witness took the stand, because a pre-existing privilege existed over the documents, and was not entirely waived simply by virtue of giving notice under Rule 40A.  The court therefore only ordered production of the raw data from among the requested general “rubric of clinical records” – material that was clearly factual in nature and did not involve opinion or advice.

[28]         On that note, the question that may remain after reviewing many of these cases is whether, prior to notice being given under Rule 40A, there is any privilege over the examining doctors’ materials, specifically over anything factual in nature reported by the client and not involving opinion or advice.

[29]         I am of the view that this is not so in the circumstances of the case at bar.  The passages from Stainer cited above reaffirm that even the solicitors’ brief privilege can be trumped when it comes to the bare facts, since it is well settled that “there can be no property in a witness of fact”.  Further, regardless of the way any of the cases cited in these reasons unfolded, including applications under Rule 30, outside of Rule 30, under Rule 26, pursuant to Rule 40A, and under s. 11 of the Evidence Act, and both before a report has been put into evidence and before a report has even been created, I fail to see any examples where a court has declined to order production of the factual underpinnings of an expert’s report, as reported by the plaintiff and recorded in notes, annotations and test data.

[30]         The facts of the present matter are also such that it is the plaintiff who has applied for the information in question, and it was of course the plaintiff herself who provided that information and raw data to the doctors in question.  Further, as I appreciate the circumstances of the present application, it is the non-party doctors who have the information in their hands, and not counsel for the Chandra defendants, who presumably have not been privy to the underpinnings of the reports.  As such, I fail to see how, in these circumstances, there is any doctor-client privilege or solicitor-client privilege to assert, or any strong argument to be made about non-party rights in the context of Rule 26(11)…

[36] In conclusion on this issue, I therefore order that the defendants and Doctors Hawkins, Hepburn, Weeks, Magrega, and Munro deliver to the solicitor for the plaintiff copies of their examining notes or any other recording generated by or on behalf of said doctors that records any history given to them by the plaintiff on the examination and any notes that record the doctor’s observations or findings on physical examination together with copies of any tests, questionnaires, or other documents completed by or on behalf of the plaintiff, including scoring documents prepared by the examiner, except any documents containing the doctors’ opinions or advice, within 14 days of the pronouncement of this order.

In addition to the above, the Plaintiff’s lawyer also brought a motion for production of records documenting the extent of MSP Billings that one of the Defence Doctor’s had with respect to Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. In partially granting this order Madam Justice Arnold-Bailey held as follows with respect to the relevance of such a request:

[44] I agree with plaintiff’s counsel’s that the expertise of Dr. Munro is an issue, albeit ancillary, to this matter and that the information has been properly sought pursuant to Rule 26(11).  The information sought is relevant because, to use the wording in Peruvian Guano, it may allow the requesting party to damage the case of its adversary.  After all, to properly cross-examine Dr. Munro on his qualifications at trial will require counsel to be prepared with the relevant information to be able to do so, and as I understand it, acquiring the information at that later stage would interrupt the trial given the time it takes to receive it from Health Services.  To be clear, I find that Dr. Munro’s opinion and expertise is important as it relates to the plaintiff’s injury claims, particularly because it conflicts with the opinion of another medical expert.