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	Responding to Complaints: Don’t Make Matters Worse
	by Bernard C. LeBlanc
	February 2002 - Vol. 3 No. 5

	One of the most stressful experiences for anyone, particularly professionals, is responding to a complaint. Virtually all regulators report that the numbers of complaints that are being registered against professionals in all areas are increasing. While previous issues of this newsletter have provided general advice on how to respond to complaints, there are two particular, recurring areas that can make matters worse when responding to a complaint. The first area concerns the manner in which a professional responds to a complaint. When responding to a complaint, a professional should make sure that he or she has a clear grasp of the issues raised by the complainant and respond to those issues. The “flip side” of this advice is to avoid expanding the nature of the dispute. While responding to complaints is stressful enough, it is unfortunately not uncommon that professionals will include disparaging remarks about the complainant that do not relate directly to the complaint or the issues raised in the complaint. For example, comments about a complainant’s psychological or psychiatric status, either real or perceived, their ethnicity, racial background, or other personal characteristics will almost inevitably create more problems for the professional than it solves. Professionals sometimes try to paint the complainant as hysterical or otherwise unreasonable. However, all practitioners must recognize that the work they do is very important in the lives of their clients, and their clients therefore often have a tremendous emotional investment in the services offered by the professional. It is therefore not unusual for a client to become quite emotional if he or she becomes upset with the services provided. Pointing this out to the regulator does not help the investigating body to determine the merits of the complaint. Worse still, if the professional’s response is sufficiently belligerent, the professional may himself or herself be faced with additional allegations of unprofessional conduct for the manner in which they respond to the complaint. While these sorts of proceedings are very unusual, it cannot be in the professional’s interest to expand the scope of the investigation by making an already volatile situation worse. The best advice, then, is to restrict your response as much as possible to the actual facts of the case and only expand the scope of the investigation if it is an absolutely integral part of your defense. However, it can rarely, if ever, be useful to make disparaging or personal remarks about the complainant. The other issue that sometimes causes concern for professionals is when the nature of the allegations against the professional expands beyond the scope of the original complaint. While it is generally accepted that a regulator cannot investigate a member for matters beyond the scope of the complaint, most regulators have the authority to commence further proceedings if, during the course of investigating one complaint, it learns about significant problems in other areas. Accordingly, while professionals should always be concerned about the manner in which they practice their professions, it is probably useful to review all aspects of one’s practice if one receives a complaint. First, if there is merit to the complaint, other areas of the professional’s practice may have led to the actual issue that is the source of the complaint. However, investigators sometimes visit the offices of practitioners during the course of investigating one complaint, and it is always in the professional’s interest to ensure that his or her office is run efficiently to avoid a situation where an investigator reports additional problems to the regulator, thereby potentially raising additional concerns.



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	Professional Practice and Liability on the Net is a monthly internet newsletter addressing issues of interest to a wide range of professionals. Please consult with a lawyer for specific legal advice. If you wish to be removed from the list of subscribers, please simply reply to this email. If you wish to reprint this article, please provide appropriate credit, and send a copy of the publication to, Steinecke Maciura LeBlanc, 401 Bay Street, Suite 2308, P.O. Box 23, Toronto, ON M5H 2Y4. Or, call 599-2200, ext. 232, or email bleblanc@sml-law.com. Comments and suggestions are also welcome.