An Alberta judge has suggested that if a workplace safety policy or program requires that certain accidents be investigated, then the accident investigation reports may not be subject to litigation privilege – meaning that government safety investigators may be entitled to obtain the investigation file.
The comment was made in a case that involved an investigation by an in-house lawyer after a “whistleblower” complained about a potential conflict of interest by a former employee. Because the company had not shown that the dominant purpose of the investigation was to assist in anticipated litigation, rather than to satisfy the requirements of the company’s whistleblower program, the investigation documents were not litigation privileged.
The court offered the following analogy, which is of interest to health and safety professionals:
“A useful analogy might be drawn to the many reported cases dealing with fire or explosions at industrial facilities. When such event occurs it is obviously a real possibility that an investigation will result in litigation against, for example, the manufacturer of faulty equipment. However, the owner of the facility likely has workplace safety programs. Defendants to litigation are entitled to explore through cross-examination the parameters of the workplace safety program in order to advance an argument that, while anticipated litigation was one of the reasons for the investigation, the requirements of the workplace safety program was an equal reason for the investigation. Likewise, the defendants in this case are entitled to explore through cross-examination, inter alia, the extent to which the investigation which occurred was required under Talisman’s whistleblower program.”
While, in the whistleblower case, the company was not able to rely on litigation privilege to avoid turning over the investigation documents to the other side in a civil lawsuit, the court decided that the company could rely on legal advice privilege (also called “solicitor-client privilege”). The court held that one of the purposes of the investigation was to ascertain the facts in order to get legal advice from their in-house counsel and, if the matter proceeded further, their outside counsel. As such, the investigation file was subject to legal advice privilege and the company was not required to give it to the opposing party.
Employers should ensure, when faced with a serious accident, that they consider retaining legal counsel promptly to provide advice and to attempt to attach “legal advice privilege” to the investigation file. Otherwise, the employer may – depending on what its safety program says about investigations – be required to turn over the entire investigation file to the government safety investigators.
Talisman Energy Inc v Flo-Dynamics Systems Inc, 2015 ABQB 561 (CanLII)
