The Plaintiff applied for an Order to produce further relevant and material records from the Defendants and for penalties to be paid to the Plaintiff pursuant to Rule 5.12 and to the Court pursuant to Rule 10.49.

The Plaintiff was suing the Defendants for conspiracy, malicious prosecution, unlawful arrest, and unlawful confinement. The Defendants were Candice Rumancik and various members of the Calgary Police Service. Ms. Rumancik was the ex-wife of one of the Defendant officers.

The Defendants agreed to produce all the information requested in the Application aside from “personal relationship records” that would speak to personal relationships between the Defendants and which the Defendants characterized as not relevant and “an improper fishing expedition”.

The Court noted that “relevant” refers to the issues in the pleadings and “material” refers to whether that information can help, directly or indirectly, prove a fact in issue. It was an admitted fact that some of the Defendants were friends, socialized together and had a significant friendship. Much of the personal history and relationship of the Defendants was admitted in a Notice to Admit Facts.

The Court found that the production of a large volume of personal communications would not assist in the proper prosecution of the Action, rather, it would likely “impair the proper progress of this matter to trial, allowing for irrelevant, extraneous and collateral matters to unnecessarily hinder or delay arriving at the truth of the facts.”

The Application was dismissed with respect to the Plaintiff’s demand for production of the “personal relationship records”.