Letters Of Request: Court Upholds Public Policy Limits On Enforcement

In recent years the Canadian courts have been increasingly willing to enforce the judgments of foreign courts and assist in the administration of foreign justice, particularly in permitting the taking of evidence in Canada for use in a foreign proceeding. One commonly used method when evidence is to be obtained from an individual in Canada for a proceeding in a foreign jurisdiction is a letter of request or letters rogatory. The recent decision in Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP v Gauthier ((2006) 82 OR (3d) 189 (SCJ)) demonstrates that there are limits, typically informed by public policy considerations, on the extent to which a Canadian court will assist a foreign court.

Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP is a large US law firm carrying on business principally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It obtained a letter of request from a Pennsylvania court seeking the production of documents and oral evidence from Claude Gauthier, a Canadian citizen and resident, for use in a Pennsylvania court