Disclosure of Surveillance

If surveillance is provided to an independent medical assessor, does it have to be produced to the plaintiff, even if the assessor does not rely on it in forming his or her opinion?

In Aherne v. Chang, [2011] O.J. No. 1880 (S.C.J.), the plaintiff sued for injuries alleged to have been caused as a result of medical treatment provided by the defendant. On the defendant's examination for discovery, his counsel confirmed that there had been no surveillance undertaken but refused to answer questions pertaining to disclosure of any future surveillance that might be undertaken after the discoveries. Counsel for the defendant took the position that privilege over documents released to a medical examiner, is waived only if the document is relied upon by the medical examiner, and not at the time that the document is released to the medical examiner. The plaintiff sought to obtain copies of any surveillance that was released by the defendant to a physician or healthcare practitioner retained for purposes of a defence medical assessment.

Master Short held that from the moment of his retainer to conduct a Rule 33 examination, a defence medical examiner owes his or her primary duty to the court. It is inappropriate and unseemly for the court to prevent any party before it from having contemporary access to the information provided to that expert.

Master Short summarized the following principles emerging from the rules and previous jurisprudence:

(a) if information is sent to an expert, then the same information should be sent to the opposing party to allow that party to test the expert’s opinion;
(b) an opposing party is entitled to the facts on which the expert’s opinion is based;
(c) so long as an expert read a document sent to him or her, then that document was considered, such that it is a “finding” that must be produced;
(d) the privilege claimed over a document sent to an expert is waived at the time that it was decided to rely on that expert’s opinion or in circumstances where privilege is waived over the report, even if the waiver was inadvertent;
(e) by sending a defence medical assessor portions of surveillance, privilege over the full surveillance video or all photographs is waived.

Master Short held that privilege is lost at the point the material is sent to an expert retained for the purpose of a Rule 33 examination. It was therefore held that the defendant is obliged to provide a copy of any surveillance of the plaintiff concurrently with its release to any defence medical examiner.