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Tag: waiver of privilege

Keep it to Yourself! Solicitor-Client Privilege and Unintended Waiver

Written by admin on . Posted in Civil Procedure, Uncategorized. 58 Comments on Keep it to Yourself! Solicitor-Client Privilege and Unintended Waiver


As previously discussed, the law in Canada permits people to seek confidential legal advice.  Confidential communications between a lawyer and client are a “fundamental civil and legal right“.  This right permits individuals to not only get the advice they need but also to claim ‘privilege‘ over these discussions and to not disclose them in the course of a lawsuit.
This privilege can be waived, however, if the person receiving the advice chooses to discuss the nature of the privileged communications.  This was demonstrated in interesting reasons for judgement released this week by the BC Supreme Court, Vancouver Registry.
In this week’s case (Biehl v. Strang) the Plaintiff apparently advanced the Defendant Mr. Strang $1.6 million.  The lawsuit involved allegations of unjust enrichment and whether there was an enforceable contract as between the parties.  The Plaintiff sued two individual and two corporate defendants.
In the course of the lawsuit one lawyer prepared a statement of defence on behalf of Mr. Strang and the corporate defendants.  Eventually a new lawyer was brought on to represent the corporate defendants.  Mr. Strang, by the time he attended examination for discovery, was self represented.
At his discovery Mr. Strang was asked if he agreed with the contents of the Statement of Defence.   He disagreed with some of the contents.  He was then asked whether he was “giving instrucitons (to his then lawyer) about the drafting of the statement of defence“.   He did not object to this question and replied that he did not give instructions as to the contents of the defence.
The Plaintiff’s lawyer then brought a motion for access to the former lawyer’s records arguing that the Defendant’s lack of objection in discussing this topic constituted a waiver of privilege.   Madam Justice Arnold-Bailey agreed and ordered limited production of otherwise privileged documents.   The court reviewed the law of solicitor-client privilege and waiver at length at paragraphs 31-68 of the reasons for judgement.  In concluding that privilege had been waived the Court provided the following reasons:

[69]    To summarize, in the present case Mr. Strang and the corporate defendants jointly retained Mr. Johnson to represent them.  In the course of doing so, Mr. Johnson prepared and filed a joint statement of defence.  Mr. Strang, by his answers to questions at examination for discovery, denied that he had provided instructions to Mr. Johnson as to the statement of defence and impliedly waived solicitor-client privilege in relation to instructions provided to Mr. Johnson regarding the preparation of the statement of defence.  I have found that Mr. Strang waived his own privilege but not that of the corporate defendants.  However, the corporate defendants will waive privilege as to the preparation of the statement of defence if they call Mr. Johnson.  They seek to do so for the limited purpose of determining whether Mr. Strang approved the statement of defence.

[70]    The position of the plaintiff is that he is entitled to all the material in the possession of Mr. Johnson and his law firm that is relevant and material to the preparation and content of the statement of defence.

[71]    The position taken by the corporate defendants is too narrow; the position taken by the plaintiff is too broad.  The somewhat unusual facts in this case dictate a very cautious and considered approach.  The record is clear that as of the June 2010 discovery of Mr. Strang, he and the corporate defendants no longer jointly retained Mr. Johnson, the lawyer with whom they had privileged communications.  This speaks to a waiver of privilege by Mr. Strang that is very limited in scope.  Mr. Strang ought not to be considered to have waived solicitor-client privilege over anything more than the matters he spoke directly about.

For a more in depth look at this topic you can review the Canadian Bar Associations recently released paper on Solicitor Client Privilege in Canada.

ICBC Injury Claims and Witness Statements; Getting Proper Disclosure

Written by admin on . Posted in Civil Procedure, Uncategorized.

Further to my recent post on this topic, often after serious motor vehicle collisions ICBC sends adjusters out to collect statements from the parties and known witnesses to the event.
When a lawsuit for compensation is brought by an injured party ICBC sometimes does not disclose the witness statements to the Plaintiff on the basis of ‘litigation privilege‘.   Being a monopoly insurer, ICBC investigates claims and our Courts have consistently held that if the statements were obtained during the ‘investigation‘ stage ICBC’s claim of ‘litigation privilege‘ will fail and the documents will have to be disclosed.  Reasons for judgement were released this week with helpful comments addressing this area of the law.
In this week’s case (Sauve v. ICBC) the Plaintiff was injured in 2008 motor vehicle collision.   After the collision ICBC hired an independent adjuster who obtained witness statements and also provided ICBC a report in which she sized up the various witnesses.  In describing the report the adjuster deposed that she “used my expertise and experience as an Insurance Adjuster to describe each of the Witnesses, including their physical appearance, demeanor and presentation. I also provided an analysis as to the likely performance of each witness in court. I further provided analysis of the commonalities between various witness accounts for the purpose of assessing credibility and preparing the case of the Defendant, ICBC should litigation occur”
ICBC provided the Plaintiff with the witness statements but refused to provide the report claiming the protection of litigation privilege.  The Plaintiff brought a motion to force disclosure.  Ultimately Mr. Justice Joyce held that the reports were privileged and ICBC did not have to disclose them to the Plaintiff.  Before reaching this conclusion the Court provided helpful reasons addressing the difficulty ICBC may face in claiming privilege over witness statements obtained in the immediate aftermath of a collision.  Mr. Justice Joyce reasoned as follows:

[34] I turn to the second part of the test: were the documents created for the dominant purpose of assisting the defendant in the conduct of the anticipated litigation by Ms. Sauvé?

[35] Once again in answering that question, it is important to focus on when the reports were created and to consider them separate from any consideration of whether the witness statements and photographs would meet the dominant purpose test. I can certainly accept that the witness statements and photographs may well have come into existence for two purposes:

(1)       to investigate the circumstances of the accident, and

(2)       to assist in the conduct of litigation.

[36] Therefore, whether those documents would satisfy the second part of the test might have been a difficult question to answer. The defendant might not have been able to meet the test for the first group of documents on a balance of probabilities, but that is not the question that I have to decide.

[37] In my view, when deciding whether the reports were prepared for the dominant purpose of litigation I have to consider not only what was known by Mr. Taylor and communicated to Ms. Webber; I also have to consider what Ms. Webber knew when she prepared the reports, as well as the nature of the reports. Ms. Webber has deposed that when she prepared the reports, she believed that the dominant purpose for their creation was litigation. She came to that conclusion being aware of the information that the witnesses could give with respect to the circumstances of the accident. According to Ms. Webber, the reports consist of her descriptions of the witness, her impressions or opinions concerning their credibility and her own analysis of how the evidence of the various witnesses matched or conflicted. While it might be possible that such information might assist ICBC at the investigation stage, I am of the view that any such use of the documents would clearly be secondary to their use in assisting counsel in the conduct of the action. I am, therefore, satisfied that the reports were created for the dominant purpose of litigation and attracted litigation privilege.

In addition to the above this case contains a useful analysis of the law of waiver of privilege and ‘common interest’ privilege and is worth reviewing in full for anyone interested in these topics.