There have been recent decisions in Canada regarding the admissibility of evidence obtained through an invasion of privacy. Recently in a decision from Nova Scotia (Armoyan v. Armoyan [2013] NSJ No 438), the court refused to admit emails in a family law matter where the wife had obtained emails by cloning the family computer without the husband’s permission. The court found that to admit such evidence would offend public policy because the wife’s improper conduct of cloning the family hard drive without the husband’s consent.
This is a developing area of law and parties to a family law proceeding should be cautious of improperly obtaining evidence. Use of evidence that has been obtained through an invasion of privacy by a party may open them up to having the evidence being rejected by the court and to being sued in civil court for damages of invasion of privacy.
(Source: The Lawyers Weekly, July 25, 2014, Article: “Evidence gained from invasions of privacy excluded”; Author: Adrienne Lee)
