Can a court of appeal interfere with a trial judge's conclusions on viva voce evidence?
British Columbia, Canada
The following excerpt is from Chretien v. Jensen, 1998 CanLII 4512 (BC CA):
Questions of fact decided at trial on viva voce evidence may not be interfered with by an appellate court unless the trier of fact has made a palpable or overriding error. In Toneguzzo-Norvell v. Burnaby Hospital, 1994 CanLII 106 (SCC), [1994] 1 S.C.R. 114, Madam Justice McLachlin at 121 said: A court of appeal must not interfere with a trial judge's conclusions on matters of fact unless there is palpable or overriding error. A court of appeal will only intervene if the judge has made a manifest error, has ignored conclusive or relevant evidence, has misunderstood the evidence, or has drawn erroneous conclusions from it. A court of appeal is not entitled to interfere merely because it takes a different view of the evidence.
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