L'exception que constitue le témoignage d'opinion du témoin ordinaire

R v Parada, 2016 SKCA 102

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[25]           This exception, sometimes called the “compendious statement of facts exception”, refers to the rule that “lay witnesses” can give opinion evidence on issues that do not require special knowledge and where it is virtually impossible to separate the facts from the inferences based on those facts (Cyr at para 118). There is an unlimited number of categories of topics a lay witness can testify about, and it has been established that a lay witness may give opinion evidence as to the identification of handwriting, persons and things, apparent age, the bodily plight or condition of a person, the emotional state of a person, the condition of things, certain questions of value, and estimates of speed and distance (R v Graat, 1982 CanLII 33 (SCC), [1982] 2 SCR 819 at 835 [Graat]). In particular, the Supreme Court in Graat ruled that non-expert witnesses may give evidence that someone was intoxicated, as it is not such an exceptional condition as would require a medical expert to diagnose it (at page 838).

[26]           After Graat, courts have greater freedom to receive lay witnesses’ opinions if:

(a)               the witness has personal knowledge of observed facts;

(b)               the witness is in a better position than the trier of fact to draw the inference;

(c)               the witness has the necessary experiential capacity to draw the inference; and

(d)               the opinion is a compendious mode of speaking and the witness could not as accurately, adequately, and with reasonable facility describe the facts he or she is testifying about.

(See Sidney N. Lederman, Alan W. Bryant and Michelle K. Fuerst, The Law of Evidence in Canada, 4th ed (Markham: LexisNexis, 2014) at 774.)