The Low-Down On PIPEDA Requests In Personal Injury Cases

Seemingly out of nowhere, institutional litigants, insurers and the third-party vendors they retain to support their obligations in responding to claims have been inundated with requests for disclosure on pain of complaints or actions to collect damages under the Canadian federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).  In some instances, parties or their lawyers directly approach non-parties such as medical experts and private investigation companies and demand production of documents separately from any disclosure procedures in the claims or law suits.

It is hard to point to any single rationale for employing the resort to the federal privacy legislation, except that obtaining access to personal information is probably not one of them.  Traditionally, a party to a personal injury law suit would, through his or her lawyer, be the conduit for information in health records, employment files and other personal data.  The defendant or