Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• This is a certified consumer class action arising from the alleged unlawful sale of prepaid purchase cards by various financial institutions, contrary to British Columbia's Business Practices and Consumer Protection Act (BPCPA).

• Central to the appeal is whether the plaintiff could compel production of financial documents and depositions from extra-provincial and foreign non-parties through subpoenas and letters of request under Rule 7 of the Supreme Court Civil Rules (SCCR).

• At issue is whether the orders sought qualify as "limited appeal orders" under the Court of Appeal Act, requiring leave before an appeal can be brought.

• The Subpoena (Interprovincial) Act (SIA) was argued as an independent source of authority for extra-provincial subpoenas, but was ultimately found to derive its procedural authority from the SCCR.

• Discretionary orders by a case management judge — particularly those that are fact-specific — are afforded considerable deference, raising a high bar for the merits of any proposed appeal.

• Granting leave to appeal risked delaying the long-scheduled common issues trial set for November 2026, weighing heavily against the interests of justice.

Background and facts of the case

The underlying class action was commenced in 2014 by plaintiff Ying Jiang against Peoples Trust Company and related financial institutions. The claim alleges that the sale of prepaid purchase cards violated the Business Practices and Consumer Protection Act (BPCPA). In 2018, the common issues were certified by Justice Bowden — upheld on appeal in 2019 BCCA 149 — focusing on whether the defendants' prepaid cards constituted "prepaid purchase cards" under the BPCPA, whether fees were unlawfully charged contrary to s. 56.3, and whether the cards carried improper expiry dates contrary to s. 56.2.

The discovery dispute and the order under review

A key battleground in the class proceeding involved the production of financial documents — records relating to the number and value of prepaid cards sold, fees charged, and balances "seized" during the class period. In August 2020, the plaintiff sought these Financial Documents from the defendants. In November 2021, the case management judge granted that request, finding the documents satisfied the "low" requirements of Rule 7-1(11) of the SCCR and that a broad scope should apply to document discovery given the substantial damages claimed, the important issues raised, and their factual and legal complexity. However, the documents were not in the hands of the named defendants alone — through examination for discovery of the nominee of Peoples Trust, it emerged that non-party "program managers" outside British Columbia and abroad potentially also held the relevant records.

The application for subpoenas and letters of request

This led the plaintiff to bring the application at the heart of the current appeal. She sought two categories of relief from the case management judge: first, Subpoena Orders under the Subpoena (Interprovincial) Act (SIA) compelling Canadian non-parties in Alberta, Ontario, and Nova Scotia to produce documents prior to the common issues trial and to testify at trial; and second, Letters of Request directed to foreign non-parties in the United Kingdom and the United States, seeking production of certain documents before the common issues trial, examination under oath or affirmation, and directions to apply to the appropriate jurisdiction to enforce the letters of request. The case management judge dismissed the application, finding that its "true character" was aiding pre-trial examination of non-party witnesses and the pre-trial production of documents from non-parties — a use of Rule 7-8 deposition and letters rogatory processes not permitted under BC law.

The leave to appeal application and the "limited appeal order" question

Following the dismissal, the plaintiff filed a notice of appeal on January 22, 2026, and simultaneously sought leave to appeal. Justice Butler of the Court of Appeal first addressed whether leave was even required. Under s. 13(2) of the Court of Appeal Act and Rule 11 of the Court of Appeal Rules, orders made under Part 7 of the SCCR — which governs discovery and inspection of documents, and depositions — are "limited appeal orders" requiring leave. The plaintiff argued three distinct sources of authority for her applications: Rule 7-8 (which she conceded was a limited appeal order), the court's inherent jurisdiction to issue letters rogatory, and s. 5 of the SIA. She contended that the latter two operated independently of the SCCR and were therefore not limited appeal orders.

Resolving the authority question

Justice Butler rejected the plaintiff's argument across all three grounds. Applying the reasoning from Teal Cedar Products Ltd. v. Mashari, 2021 BCCA 353, the court held that what matters is the true substance of the order, not its mere form: where a specific rule of the SCCR addresses the process, the order takes its procedural character from that rule for purposes of determining whether leave is required. On letters of request, the court confirmed that while letters rogatory may historically derive from the court's inherent jurisdiction, that power is now fully within Rule 7-8 and takes its procedural character from that Rule — an order made under that Rule is a limited appeal order, and the inherent jurisdiction of the court does not change that procedural character. On the SIA, the court found that the statute does not independently authorize the issuance of subpoenas — it is reciprocal legislation intended to establish a statutory mechanism by which subpoenas issued in British Columbia (or in other Canadian provinces) can be recognized in and enforced by those other jurisdictions. Accordingly, both the Subpoena Orders and the Letters of Request Orders were limited appeal orders requiring leave.

The merits and the decision to deny leave

Turning to whether leave should be granted, the court applied the well-established four-part test: significance to practice, significance to the action, merits of the proposed appeal, and whether the appeal would unduly hinder the proceeding. On significance to practice, the court found the appeal to be of limited general importance given that the case management judge's ruling was highly fact-specific and did not foreclose the ability to obtain evidence from out-of-jurisdiction non-parties altogether — it merely precluded the use of depositions, whether through subpoenas or letters of request, as a means to obtain pre-trial production of documents and examination of non-party witnesses in the circumstances before the court. On significance to the action, while the Financial Documents were acknowledged as relevant to the common issues trial, the court noted that the applicant herself had taken the position at the hearing below that the common issues trial would proceed regardless of the outcome of the production application, and that the Financial Documents were most significant to the determination of aggregate damages — an issue that had not been certified and would not be decided at the common issues trial. On the merits, the court found the proposed appeal not frivolous but not of high merit, given the considerable deference owed to the case management judge's discretionary and fact-based assessment — which was further heightened given her lengthy involvement with and knowledge of the action. Finally, and decisively, granting leave risked derailing the long-awaited common issues trial scheduled to commence on November 9, 2026 — a proceeding that had been ongoing since September 2014.

Ruling and outcome

The Court of Appeal, per Justice Butler, dismissed the application for leave to appeal. The respondents — led by Peoples Trust Company and the various non-party record holders — were the successful parties. The court determined it was not in the interests of justice to grant leave, citing the limited significance of the appeal to both the practice and the action, the low merits of the proposed grounds, and the serious risk of delay to a proceeding with a very lengthy history in both courts. No specific monetary amount was ordered or awarded in this decision, as the ruling was entirely procedural in nature, addressing only the threshold question of leave to appeal a discovery-related order.