Glossary term
White Burgess Standard
The White Burgess standard is the Supreme Court of Canada framework, confirmed in *White Burgess Langille Inman v. Abbott and Haliburton Co.*, 2015 SCC 23, holding that an expert witness's duty to the court overrides any duty to the retaining party.
The Supreme Court in White Burgess reframed expert admissibility around the expert's independence. The court held that an expert who cannot or will not give independent, impartial, and unbiased evidence is not admissible. The standard is now part of the threshold inquiry under the Mohan admissibility test.
For practising experts, White Burgess shapes how engagements are structured. The retainer agreement, the communication channels, and the report itself must reflect the expert's primary duty to the court. An expert who has a stake in the outcome (financial, reputational, or relational) faces a high admissibility hurdle.
For Canadian counsel, the White Burgess analysis applies to every expert engagement and is now a frequent ground for cross-examination at the qualification stage.
We work to the White Burgess standard as a default. Our reports document independence at scoping and reflect it throughout.