Our skilled team of Vancouver and Calgary family lawyers has a trained team of Vancouver Family Email Text Privacy Lawyers to help you locate key family law evidence but also to help you ensure spousal privacy is respected. In today’s blog summer law student Fraser MacLean explains how private texts emails and other digital evidence are treated by the courts in a family law case. Our top rated* Vancouver Family Email Text Privacy Lawyers operate out of 7 offices across BC and Alberta.
*(Top Choice Award (2014, 2016, 2017), top rated reviews on Google, Yelp, threebestrated, lawerratingz.com).
Lorne MacLean, QC warns “don’t send any letter, text or email to your spouse or child that you wouldn’t be proud to have judge read because trust me they will!” These documents show up in custody disputes and often help show there is hidden income or family property.
Our Vancouver Family Email Text Privacy Lawyers have won major victories by seizing computers, and catching spouses hiding income and assets that we found out about by emails and texts or social media posts. You should be aware of criminal code provisions in Canada however.
Vancouver Family Email Text Privacy Lawyers 1-877-602-9900
In this day and age we use technology to stay in touch with each other all the time. From email and text messages to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, the evolution of social media has allowed people to reach each other like never before. With that being said, many people take the privacy of their messages, email, and social media posts for granted. The increased use of social media and technology has allowed for access to more information on people.
Expectation Of Privacy Key Says Fraser MacLean of Vancouver Family Email Text Privacy Lawyers
Our Vancouver Family Email Text Privacy Lawyers know that many people live their daily lives without thinking that someday posts they’ve made on social media or private messages they’ve exchanged with others will one day come up in front of a judge in a courtroom. The reality is it happens quite frequently. There is a low reasonable expectation of privacy over public Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter posts that are out there for the world to see. However, many clients wonder whether more personal things such as private email messages can be used against them in divorce proceedings, especially when their spouse has obtained these without their permission. On the surface this looks like it could be a violation of one’s privacy.
Vancouver Family Email Text Privacy Lawyers Warn These Documents Will Be Exhibits
Vancouver Family Email Text Privacy Lawyers warn that the reality is email messages are frequently used as exhibits in divorce proceedings. In regards to email and other documents in which a spouse has a ‘reasonable expectation of privacy’, where by the documents were potentially obtained through a violation of one’s privacy, this become trickier to introduce. Some cases including a recent one in Ontario came down hard on a spouse who snooped.
In the case (Chand v Chand 2015 ONCA 228) the Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge’s decision to admit email as evidence after the Respondent had obtained them without the Claimant’s permission. In deciding whether the emails should be admissible, the judge considered the following three factors:
26 (i) whether the evidence was relevant to the issue and whether it was available by other means; (ii) whether the person seeking to introduce the e-mails did anything improper to obtain them; and (iii) whether the probative value outweighed the prejudicial effect of admitting the e-mails.
Vancouver Family Email Text Privacy Lawyers Explain Case Where Solicitor Client Privilege Lost
In the B.C case (McDermott v. McDermott, 2013 BCSC 534) the husband came across his wife’s email messages to her sister explaining a plan to have her lawyer attempt to delay the trial by losing the application and appealing. Counsel for the wife argued that the emails fall under the solicitor-client privilege, the highest privilege known to the courts, which is imperative to the administration of justice. Counsel for the husband argued that the emails fall under the future crimes exception to solicitor-client privilege.
Solicitor client privilege is amongst the most zealously guarded privacy rights an individual and their lawyer can have. We demand that our clients not snoop on any such communications even if they are readily available on a family computer or shared phone or other device.
Even this protected group of communications may be producible in court under certain circumstances.
In deciding that the emails were admissible and fell under the future crimes exception, the trial judge provided the following reasons:
108 Although Mr. McDermott chose to read some of Ms. Harrington’s emails without her consent, the unlawful conduct evidenced in the impugned emails should not be countenanced. Exclusion of the emails would bring the administration of justice into disrepute. Whether she has a claim to pursue against Mr. McDermott for breach of privacy is outside the parameters of the pleadings in this case.
109 In summary, no privilege attaches to Ms. Harrington’s impugned communications with Mr. Maynard about the plan because they fall within the future crimes exception.
