On the same day, the taxpayer delivered its notice of appeal to the Tax Court, informed CRA of the appeal, and delivered its documents and list of documents. The Minister then used these documents to issue a second reassessment. The taxpayer successfully argued that this was a breach of the Minister's duty, as a litigant, to refrain from using discovery information outside of the relevant proceedings (see summary under s. 152(4)). As a preliminary matter, D'Arcy J found that:
- the taxpayer's appeal had been instituted immediately upon the Tax Court's receipt of the notice of appeal, rather than when the Court served the notice on the Minister nearly four weeks later (para. 36); and
- the documents were not disclosed voluntarily, but as part of the discovery process (and the taxpayer disclosed promptly in order to hurry the proceedings along) (para. 38).