Disclosure of privileged and private communications

Link to older case law related to Disclosure of privileged and private information

Celanese Canada Inc. v. Murray Demolition Corp., 2006 SCC 36 (CanLII)

  • July 27, 2006

Date: 2006-07-27 Docket: 30652. Link Coram: McLachlin C.J. and Bastarache, Binnie, LeBel, Deschamps, Fish and Charron JJ. Headnotes from Supreme Court of Canada: "Civil procedure - Removal of counsel - Plaintiffs' lawyers seizing electronic documents from defendants' premises pursuant to Anton Piller order later found to include documents subject to solicitor-client privilege - Plaintiffs' lawyers conducting partial review of documents - Defendants seeking to remove plaintiffs' lawyers as solicitors of record - Whether onus on plaintiffs to rebut presumption of prejudice - Whether plaintiffs' lawyers should be removed."

Chan v. Dynasty Executive Suites Ltd., 2006 CanLII 23950 (ON S.C.)

  • July 07, 2006

Date: 2006-07-17 Docket: 02-CV-223930 CM3. Belobaba J. | Link
In a case alleging fraud, conspiracy and breach of fiduciary duty, the defendants moved for removal of plaintiff's counsel. Defendants had inadvertently included privileged documents in their production set and notified plaintiff's counsel as soon as they became aware. Plaintiff's counsel refused to return the documents despite repeated requests, saying in the first instance that the documents weren't privileged and in any case, any privilege had been waived. Court ruled that the firm be removed as the solicitor of record for the plaintiff.

Descartes v. Trademerit, 2012 ONSC 5283

  • September 19, 2012

Date: 2012-09-19 Master MacLeod. | Link

The parties had agreed to the forensic analysis of the defendant's hard disk without specifying what they meant by forensic analysis, or who would do the analysis. A duplicate copy of the hard drive was given to plaintiff's counsel who proceeded to search for documents. The issue of privileged documents and the process for dealing with them had not been worked out and the parties couldn't agree, so the court was asked to provide direction.

Dublin v. Montessori Jewish Day School of Toronto, 2006 CanLII 7510 (ON S.C.)

  • September 19, 2016

Date: 2006-03-15 Docket: 04-CV-277495CM2. Master Carol A. Albert. Link
The issue is whether an email communication over which Montessori Jewish Day School of Toronto and the other defendants ("Montessori") claim privilege, and which was inadvertently produced to the Dublin plaintiffs ("Dublin"), ought to be returned and treated as a privileged communication.

Eizenshtein v. Eizenshtein, 2008 CanLII 31808 (ON S.C.)

  • June 26, 2008

Date: 2008-06-26 Docket: 20570/05. Wildman J. | Link
"A woman sees e-mails between her boyfriend and his solicitor about strategies to use in the divorce battle with his wife. When she and her boyfriend break up, the woman provides copies of the e-mails to her boyfriend's wife. Can the e-mails be filed as part of the wife's affidavit in the divorce proceedings?" (para 2)

R. v. David M. DALEY, 2008 NBPC 29 (CanLII)

  • June 02, 2008

Date: 2008-06-02 Judge Alfred H. Brien. | Link
Motion to exclude evidence stored on a hard disk seized by CRA in the course of an investigation of tax evasion. The hard disk included information related to another company that would subsequently be investigated by CRA under a separate warrant (Pine Crest), as well as that covered under the original warrant (Nautica).

Trafford Holdings Ltd. v. Batchelor, 2007 BCSC 58 (CanLII)

  • January 12, 2007

Date: 2007-01-12 Docket: 06 3526. B.F. Ralph J. | Link
Implementation of six factors mentioned in Celanese to determine if counsel should be removed in a case where the solicitor had been present during the execution of an Anton Piller order and had seen materials that were privileged. The court concluded that they wasn't sufficient evidence that the plaintiff's solicitors had received privileged information during the search and the application was dismissed.