Can litigation privilege be used to prevent the production of all evidence relevant to the best interest of a child?
Ontario, Canada
The following excerpt is from Lemieux v Lemieux, 2017 ONSC 313 (CanLII):
The conflict between the protection of settlement communications by litigation privilege and the production of all evidence relevant to the best interest of a child was discussed in Hutton v. Hutton, [1990] O.J. No. 1081 (Dist. Ct.), where Taliano D.C.J. stated: I am not unmindful of the fact that the court should not lightly displace a privilege that has been entrenched in the law for so long, but in this case, it is necessary to give pre-eminence to a policy objective that is superior to it. Although both policy objectives are important and deserve to be fostered, the policy interest that promotes and protects the best interests of the child is paramount and the privilege attached to settlement discussions must therefore yield to it…
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