What is the credibility of witnesses in a civil case?
Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
The following excerpt is from Resource Development Trades Council v Muskrat Falls Employers’ Association Inc., 2017 CanLII 91589 (NL LA):
91 I will consider the credibility of witnesses with respect to the facts that are in dispute. With respect to the issue of credibility, I have considered the statement in Faryna v. Chorny 1951 CanLII 252 (BC CA), [1952] 2 D.L.R. 354 (B.C.C.A.), as follows: The credibility of interested witnesses, particularly in cases of conflict of evidence, cannot be gauged solely by the test of whether the personal demeanour of the particular witness carried conviction of the truth. The test must be to reasonably subject his story to an examination of its consistency with the probabilities that surround the currently existing conditions. In short, the real test of the truth of the story of a witness in such a case must be its harmony with the preponderance of the probabilities which a practical and informed person would readily recognize as reasonable in that place and in those conditions.
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