Unusable Discovery: BC Court Of Appeal Upholds Implied Undertaking In Engineering Complain

A recent decision from the BC Court of Appeal in Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of the Province of British Columbia v. Engineer X, 2023 BCCA 211 upheld a BC Supreme Court decision that refused to grant the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of BC ("EGBC") leave to use pre-trial discovery evidence, gathered as part of a civil action, to investigate a complaint against three of its members. EGBC is the regulatory body responsible for the regulation of the engineering and geoscience professions in BC.

What Happened?

In February 2016, a man in his early twenties fell from an exterior fire escape, resulting in catastrophic injuries. He commenced a civil action in December 2016 alleging that his fall was due to the state of disrepair of the fire escape and named an engineering company, among others, as a defendant.