Tuesday, January 24, 2017

EVERYTHING Before a Trial Judge Should be Marked as an Exhibit for Evidence or Identification

1162740 Ontario Limited v. Pingue, 2017 ONCA 52:


[36]        In my view, every document or thing put to a witness or to the trial judge as a piece of evidence should be made a numbered or lettered exhibit. I would also add this: although trial judges have discretion in whether to mark as exhibits, out-of -court statements that are used solely to impeach the credibility of a witness, for the same reasons the best practice is to mark such statements as lettered exhibits for identification, if not as numbered exhibits: Ontario Courtroom Procedure, at p. 945-946; and R. v. Betker, [1997] O.J. No. 1578, 115 CCC (3d) 421 at 430 (C.A.).




Of the Law Societies of Upper Canada and Nunavut 

1 comment:

E.J. Guiste said...

This is an excellent statement of law.
It applies in the administrative law context as well.
Where a tribunal agrees to make certain documents part
of record for "any further proceedings which may arise"
from their decision, it is a serious issue and an error
of law for the tribunal to file a lesser record of
proceedings not including those documents which they
identified on the record in the matter under review.