Evidence: Privacy lawyer Taryn Burnett unlawfully obtained Plaintiff's credit report

On February 10, 2017, law firm Gowlings finally disclosed some documents to the plaintiff further to the December 12, 2016 decision of the Alberta Privacy Commissioner ordering Gowlings to respond to the plaintiff Carbone's access request for her credit and financial information, pursuant to the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA).

The documents disclosed by Gowlings confirm the identity of the lawyer who invaded the plaintiff's privacy and unlawfully obtained her credit report without consent as Taryn C. Burnett.

The Equifax credit report search document shows Burnett's full initials "TCB" on the reference line, along with Gowlings' internal file number for the Whidden medical malpractice lawsuit.

Credit report pulled by Gowlings shows Taryn C. Burnett initials "TCB" 

on requester reference line. Personal information redacted.

Burnett was an opposing medical malpractice defence lawyer for Dr. Peter Whidden, who injured the plaintiff and caused her to undergo multiple corrective surgeries. Burnett was later removed from acting as defence lawyer in the lawsuit at about the same time as her credit report pull.

Ironically, Burnett also practices privacy law and was well aware that pulling the plaintiff's credit report without consent was an illegal act and a violation of PIPA.

In addition to confirming Burnett as the lawyer responsible for the unauthorized credit pull, the disclosed documents also reveal Burnett was in a flurry of activity on April 11, 2013 searching out the plaintiff's assets through various other online searches, including property searches. All show the requester reference information as "TCB" and Gowlings' file number for the Whidden lawsuit.

The plaintiff first learned of the unlawful credit report pull when she saw that a "hard" credit inquiry by Gowlings appeared in a credit report she obtained for herself in the fall of 2015.

In an earlier blog post, it was reported that Megan McMahon, a sometimes defence lawyer on the Whidden lawsuit, acknowledged to the Law Society of Alberta, in a complaint that is still in progress, that they pulled the plaintiff's credit report. McMahon attempted to justify the privacy breach by stating it was somehow proper because they had a security for costs application. In reality, McMahon lost the security for costs application because the court determined it had no merit, and a security for costs application is not a valid reason to pull a credit report. McMahon and Burnett did not even make a request before the court to obtain the credit report, nor would the court have entertained such a request in the circumstances.

The plaintiff also confirmed with Service Alberta, administrator of PIPA, that a security for costs application was not a valid reason for the lawyers to pull her credit report.

Unrelated prior decisions by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada have found law firms to be in contravention of privacy legislation PIPEDA by obtaining credit reports without the complainants' consent: Law firms collected credit reports without consent, 2006 CanLII 34365 (PCC). Court decisions also confirm the unlawfulness of pulling credit reports without consent.

The plaintiff will now prepare her full complaint on Gowlings' and its lawyers' privacy violations of PIPA for submission to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta (OIPC).