Vancouver Family Trial lawyer Tips can help you increase your chances of success at trial and help you properly prepare to be a credible and believable witness on the stand. Trials are stressful and discoveries that precede the trial require both the client and their family lawyer to be prepared. Here is one of Lorne N. MacLean, QC’s Vancouver Family Trial lawyer Tips.
Vancouver Family Trial lawyer Tips – Credibility In Family Law Cases Is A Big Deal
In a current case we are involved in, we have a classic “he said she said dispute” on evidence in a high stakes high net worth family law case. Many family law cases will turn on whose evidence is preferred by the court.
- How do the Vancouver family lawyers undermine or destroy the opposing party’s case?
- What does a judge look for in deciding which party is telling the truth and which party is not?
- How does a judge decide if someone has a language barrier or gets confused on their evidence but is actually honest versus someone who is “smooth” on the stand but is really a cagey liar?
- Judges are trained to recognize body language and measure someone’s demeanour but what other techniques do top* family lawyers and Judges use to ensure justice prevails?
Vancouver Family Trial lawyer Tips -How To Build or Destroy Credibility
Tathgur v Dobson, 2018 BCSC 1384, although a personal injury case, provides a very simple but compelling summary of what makes a witness credible or incredible in the Court’s eyes. Judge’s and top* family lawyers like Lorne N MacLean, QC are adept at assessing whether a witnesses statements on the stand pass the smell test. Judges and lawyers know “even 1 lie is too many“. Here is a great summary and the basis for our #1 Vancouver Family Trial lawyer Tips today:
[107] The proper approach to assessing the truthfulness of any interested witness’s testimony was articulated in Faryna v. Chorny, [1952] 2 D.L.R. 354 (B.C.C.A.) at 357:
The credibility of interested witnesses, particularly in cases of conflict of evidence, cannot be gauged solely by the test of whether the personal demeanour of the particular witness carried conviction of the truth. The test must reasonably subject his story to an examination of its consistency with the probabilities that surround the currently existing conditions. In short, the real test of the truth of the story of a witness in such a case must be its harmony with the preponderance of the probabilities which a practical and informed person would readily recognize as reasonable in that place and in those conditions….
[108] The factors identified by Justice Dillon in Bradshaw v. Stenner, 2010 BCSC 1398 at para. 186, aff’d 2012 BCCA 296, also play a role in assessing whether the evidence of a witness is truthful and accurate. These factors include the ability of the witness to resist being influenced by his or her interest in recalling those events; the internal and external consistency of the witness’s evidence; whether the witness’s evidence harmonizes with or is contradicted by other evidence, particularly independent or undisputed evidence; whether his or her evidence seems unreasonable, improbable or unlikely, bearing in mind the probabilities affecting the case; and the witness’s demeanour, meaning the way he or she presents while testifying.
Vancouver Family Trial lawyer Tips – Call 604-602-9000
We hope this first instalment of our Vancouver Family Trial lawyer Tips series helps you understand how the search for truth gets decided in family cases where parties tell diametrically opposed versions of events. For those who think they can get away with it – think again-lying in Court will usually torpedo your case and can result in fines, special costs awards and even jail time.
We have 6 offices across BC and in downtown Calgary. If you have a high stakes high net worth case contact us.
