Smith v. Funk; Amos v. Virk (2003)

LEAF intervened in Smith v. Funk, an Appeal to the BC Supreme Court addressing disclosure of documents to the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) in civil cases that may have an adverse impact on women, poor women and disabled women. Smith v. Funk proceeded to the Court of Appeal chambers with a similar case, Amos v. Virk.

This case provided an important opportunity to address the meaning of relevance and privacy in the disclosure of documents from third parties. The case was of particular interest because of the impact that the disclosure application has on women, particularly poor and/or disabled who have disproportionate interactions with the Ministry of Social Services, other government officials and social service agencies. If ICBC won, poor women would be forced to disclose potentially embarrassing and irrelevant information to ICBC and other institutions and individuals in civil cases.

The case raised elements of compound discrimination related gender and poverty and disability. It was also of particular relevance to women's equality and access to justice because the fear of an ICBC adjuster reading about a woman's therapeutic abortion or sexual assault history may prevent women from seeking damages in personal injury matters. It was essentially the civil side of R v. Mills.

The court found that the points raised by all parties were moot because the documents in question had since been made available to the plaintiffs. The appeals were dismissed.

The implication of this outcome is that the law remains vague on the issue of disclosure of documents; therefore, women and other marginalized groups will continue to be vulnerable to having their privacy violated and used to prevent them from accessing their equality rights.