How To Proceed When Facing Demands For Legal Documents

Family law litigation involving the one or both spouses' family members is becoming more common. Unfortunately, until recently, document disclosure in this context had not been considered by the court (or at least there were no reported decisions). However, recently in Etemadi v Maali, 2021 BCSC 1003, the court had occasion to consider this very issue. In that case, the concept of the "Etemadi family" had been relied upon by the wife throughout the proceedings in the Supreme Court as the basis for various claims against property the husband's parents said belonged to them. In making her very broad claims against almost every asset she was aware of, regardless of ownership, the wife cast the net wide in the demand for documents she made.