There is an interesting decision out today from the Court of Appeal for Ontario on the technical but important issue of the jurisdiction of the court. The decision, Mignacca v. Merck Frost Canada Ltd., 2009 ONCA 393, involves a class action lawsuit over the drug Vioxx. An Ontario Superior Court judge had certified the case as a class action. Under the Ontario Class Proceedings Act, section 30(2), appeal of an order certifying a proceeding as a class proceeding can be brought to the Divisional Court with leave of a Superior Court judge. Merck Frost brought such a motion but was refused leave to appeal in November 2008. In the meantime, on March 30, 2009, an earlier certification decision in Saskatchewan was set aside by the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal. Relying on that decision, Merck Frost sought an extension of time to seek leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal from the decision of the Superior Court judge denying leave to appeal. The motion was heard by a single judge in Chambers, Mr. Justice Paul Rouleau.

Mr. Justice Rouleau decided that an extension of time for leave to appeal was not required, since the decision of the Superior Court judge refusing leave to appeal could be construed as a final order. Under section 6(1)(b) of the Courts of Justice Act, final orders of a Superior Court judge can be appealed to the Court of Appeal without leave. While not finally deciding the issue, Justice Rouleau stated that, in the event Merck Frost considered the order to be a final one, they were given a ten day extension of time to appeal. The Plaintiffs could then seek to quash the appeal by a motion brought before a panel of the Court of Appeal.

In my view, there is considerable doubt the legislature intended that a refusal of leave to appeal the granting of a certification order could be appealed directly to the Court of Appeal. This would only serve to encourage further review of certification orders, which the legislature intended would be screened out by way of the leave to appeal procedure to the Divisional Court. Given that Justice Rouleau has suggested the Plaintiffs can seek to quash the appeal which will undoubtedly be brought by Merck Frost, we have clearly not heard the last of this issue.

It is a fundamental aspect of our civil justice system that parties to a lawsuit are required to make available to their opponent any relevant document relating to the matters in issue in the action. It does not matter if the document helps or hurts the cause, it must be produced. Lawyers, and particularly insurance lawyers defending personal injury claims, are waking up to the relevance of social media sites such as Facebook. The argument goes like this: “You Mr. or Ms. Plaintiff are claiming that injuries suffered in the accident have interfered with your quality of life. We would like to see how you portray yourself in your communication with friends on Facebook.”

In a thoughtful decision, Justice David Brown of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice had occasion to consider this argument in a recent case called Leduc v. Roman, 2009 CanLII 6838. Mr. Leduc had been involved in a car accident in February 2004. He brought an action claiming that his enjoyment of life and ability to engage in sports had been adversely affected. The defence lawyer conducted a search and learned that Mr. Leduc maintained a Facebook account. The profile available to the public showed only his name and picture. Access to the site was restricted to “friends” of Mr. Leduc. The defence brought a motion for production of information on the site. A Master of the Superior Court dismissed the motion, characterizing it as a “fishing expedition.”

Justice Brown heard the resulting appeal. He started by outlining some basic facts. Facebook is a social media website with 70 million users as of June 2008. More than 14 million photos are uploaded daily. Users can create a wall on which friends share messages with each other. Justice Brown quoted from an earlier decision on the important issue of privacy: “I have concluded that any invasion of privacy is minimal and is outweighed by the defendant’s need to have the photographs in order to assess the claim. The plaintiff cannot have a serious expectation of privacy given that 366 people have been granted access to the private site.” Justice Brown went on to articulate a rule for future cases: “Given the pervasive use of Facebook and the large volume of photographs typically posted on Facebook sites, it is now incumbent on a party’s counsel to explain to the client, in appropriate cases, that documents posted on the party’s Facebook profile may be relevant to allegations made in the pleadings.”

Mr. Leduc was ordered to deliver a further affidavit of documents and the defence lawyer was permitted to cross-examine on the affidavit so as to discover precisely which of the contents on the private site were relevant to the issues in the action. Justice Brown concluded by making the following observation: “To permit a party claiming very substantial damages for loss of enjoyment of life to hide behind self-set privacy controls on a website, the primary purpose of which is to enable people to share information about how they lead their social lives, risks depriving the opposite party of access to material that may be relevant to ensuring a fair trial.”

With these observations in hand, it seems to me that parties to a lawsuit should indeed now beware of Facebook.