Expert Advice Series: "Ghost Writing" In Expert Reports, Who Prepared Your Expert's Report?

While retaining experts is commonplace in civil litigation, counsel are not always aware of who the expert has worked with, behind the scenes, to compile research or prepare analyses that contribute to the written report. We are also not always aware when the report itself was written not by the signatory, but someone else who worked on the file. The tenability of this practice, commonly referred to as "ghost-writing", has been the subject of recent jurisprudence. In this second article in the series on expert evidence, two recent decisions on ghost-writing and their implications are discussed.

In Lavecchia v McGinn, 2016 ONSC 2193 (CanLII), a 2016 personal injury case, Master MacLeod of the Ontario Superior Court discussed the practice of ghost-writing in obiter. Here, the defendant moved for an order compelling the plaintiff to attend an independent medical examination ("IME"), and the plaintiff argued for the court to impose restrictions on the defendant's right