Lawsuits And Privacy Legislation – How Do They Interact?

As litigators know, the Rules of Civil Procedure provide for what is usually referred to as the "Deemed Undertaking" between parties to a lawsuit not to disclose documents gathered in the course of a lawsuit to parties outside of that lawsuit unless compelled to by law.

This rule does not relate to the obligations of a party to disclose documents to the other party. The Rules specifically require every party to a lawsuit to disclose to the other party the documents in that party's possession, custody or control that are relevant to the lawsuit.

On a number of occasions, I have requested production of a document from opposing counsel in the context of a lawsuit only to be met with a refusal for two reasons: firstly, because the document is allegedly not relevant, and secondly, because production of the document would cause the producing party to violate the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act  ("PIPEDA"). PIPEDA is a data privacy