Irony doesn’t escape the heat – nor does the eagle eye of SLABBED readers miss international “news you can use”:
A Knock Out to State Farm happened in a “heavyweight showdown” between State Farm and the Privacy Commissioner of Canada over the limits of Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (“PIPEDA”):
…The background of the State Farm’s action is as follows: State Farm had been subject to a number of privacy challenges by various persons relating to its collection of personal information in the course of State Farm acting on behalf of and providing a defence for its insured. The Privacy Commissioner of Canada had issued a number of findings that the information State Farm collected was ‘in the course of commercial activity’ and therefore subject to PIPEDA’s jurisdiction. State Farm had enough, and brought a court challenge…
Mainville J. of the FCC (Federal Court of Canada) held, in a very common sense decision, that PIPEDA did not apply. He said (emphasis added):
“I conclude that, on a proper construction of PIPEDA, if the primary activity or conduct at hand, in this case the collection of evidence on a plaintiff by an individual defendant in order to mount a defence to a civil tort action, is not a commercial activity contemplated by PIPEDA, then that activity or conduct remains exempt from PIPEDA even if third parties are retained by an individual to carry out that activity or conduct on his or her behalf. … In this case, the insurer-insured and attorney-client relationships are simply incidental to the primary non-commercial activity or conduct at issue, namely the collection of evidence by the defendant Ms. [X] in order to defend herself in the civil tort action brought against her by Mr. [Y].” (emphasis added)
In reading the judgment…you can’t help but come away from the decision feeling that the judge was trying to bring order to a potentially absurd result…
The SLABBED are certainly familiar with the “absurd result” of State Farm’s five-year, post-Katrina privacy rampage through the southern district Mississippi federal court – a rampage not unlike that of Germany’s radioactive wild boars: Continue reading “SLABBED “news you can use” goes international – State Farm and radioactive wild boars”