Does common law witness immunity apply in common law cases?

Finally on the scope of the common law witness immunity, I note this court’s decision in Munro v. St. Paul’s Hospital 2009 BCCA 340, which bears some resemblance to the case at bar. Munro was also an appeal from an unsuccessful motion by the defendants therein to strike out the plaintiff physician’s action for damages. He had been a surgeon at the defendant hospital, which had unilaterally “taken away” his open heart surgery practice and privileges in 1999. The hospital’s appeal board ordered his reinstatement, but the plaintiff alleged that the hospital deliberately delayed carrying out the order until after his mandatory retirement date. As in this case, the hospital argued that the appeal board had exclusive jurisdiction under s. 46(3) of the Hospital Act over the matter of hospital privileges, including any redress to which the plaintiff would be entitled. It contended that the administrative scheme provided in the Hospital Act was a “complete code” and that if any redress was to be claimed by the plaintiff, it would have to come from within the scheme. The defendant hospital also contended that since anything that went before the hospital committee was privileged, the plaintiff’s claim was bound to fail in any event.