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ICBC Criticized for Jury checks in ICBC Personal Injury Trial
Recently, a B.C. Supreme Court judge criticized ICBC for checking the accident claims histories of jurors in a recent ICBC personal injury trial.
The checks done by the ICBC lawyer and ICBC adjuster breached the province's freedom of information and privacy laws. The judge has demanded to know whether ICBC has done this in the past and why it was done at all.
On the fourth day of the ICBC personal injury trial, the matter settled but an ICBC lawyer wished to address the court and advise that some of the claims histories of the jurors had been disclosed to the ICBC lawyer representing the defendant.
The court was advised that ICBC would send a letter of apology to the jurors and notify the Information and Privacy Commissioner of the breach.
The judge noted: “…there is another obvious consideration to all of this, quite independent of questions under the privacy legislation, and that has to do with the nature of a jury and the role of counsel."
The matter is now being investigated by the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner.
These revelations are important as in our justice system, lawyers (whether an ICBC personal injury lawyer or not) are entitled to know only the name, address and occupation of jurors. Selecting jurors based on ICBC claims histories could influence the outcome of the ICBC trial. For example, if the ICBC defence lawyer knows that one of the potential jurors had a bad experience with ICBC, the ICBC defence lawyer may attempt to exclude that juror.
The bottom line is that it is unlawful to run checks on jurors.