Ontario Court Of Appeal: Experts vs. Participant Experts

In a post on this blog in January, the Ontario Court of Appeal's ruling in Moore v. Getahun was discussed. That case saw the Ontario Court of Appeal overturn a lower court's ruling in respect of the practice of lawyers reviewing draft reports of expert witnesses. 

The Court of Appeal has also just released another decision overturning a lower court's ruling on an issue involving expert witnesses. This time, the key question at issue was the very core of what constitutes an "expert" witness: specifically, to whom do the specific rules in the Ontario Rules of Civil Procedure concerning expert witnesses apply?

The case is indexed as Westerhof v. Gee Estate  though it is actually a decision in two cases released concurrently on the same issue. The facts are simple: Mr. Westerhof was a passenger in a car that was rear-ended by a car that was doing double the speed limit and he suffered injuries. He was, naturally, subsequently treated by a number of people from