Health care databases containing coded health care information not compellable

British Columbia enacted Tobacco Damages and Health are Costs Recovery Act and sued P Inc. and other tobacco manufacturers to recover cost of health care benefits on aggregate basis. P Inc. applied for production of collection of health care databases containing coded health care information which Province said it intended to use for purpose of proving causation and damages in action. Application was allowed and Province appealed. Appeal was dismissed and Province appealed. Finding of courts below that databases were not protected by s. 2(5)(b) of Act was marked by three errors. They failed to examine scope of documents and records that were protected by s. 2(5)(b), they permitted relevance of databases, to supplant text of s. 2(5)(b) and they treated phrase “particular individual insured persons” as synonymous with “identifiable individual insured persons”. Mere alteration of method by which that health care information was stored did not change nature of information itself. Even in aggregate form, databases remained “health care records and documents of particular individual insured persons”. Irrespective of their relevance, such records and documents that fall within scope of s. 2(5)(b) were not compellable.

British Columbia v. Philip Morris International, Inc. (2018), 2018 CarswellBC 1840, 2018 CarswellBC 1841, 2018 SCC 36, 2018 CSC 36, Abella J., Moldaver J., Karakatsanisn J., Gascon J., Brown J., Rowe J., and Martin J. (S.C.C.); reversed (2017), 2017 CarswellBC 369, 2017 BCCA 69, Newbury J.A., Willcock J.A., and Goepel J.A. (B.C. C.A.).