Canadians routinely open bank accounts, take out loans, sign insurance, and wireless agreements. To facilitate these daily processes, companies often use standard form contracts. You do not need legal training to realize that such contracts are “take it or leave it” prepositions. However, for a business such as a construction company signing an insurance policy, […]
Economical Mutual Insurance Company v Caughy, 2016 ONCA 226 [Caughy] is the latest decision in the ongoing conflict between the prerogative of automobile accident insurers to deny coverage when faced with ambiguity over statutory definitions, on the one hand, and the need to uphold coverage where ambiguous cases are coupled with serious debilitating injuries. In […]
Writing for the Ontario Court of Appeal ("ONCA") in Gyorffy v Drury, 2015 ONCA 31, Justice Laskin upheld an award of non-pecuniary damages for injuries arising from a motor vehicle accident ("MVA"). The case hinged upon whether the Plaintiff was permitted to corroborate his own physician's evidence on his changed functioning after the accident. At trial, it was determined […]
The recent Ontario Court of Appeal (“ONCA”) decision in Matheson v Lewis, 2014 ONCA 542 [Matheson], held that an unmodified all-terrain vehicle (“ATV”) owned by a farmer and used in farm operations does not fall within the Highway Traffic Act, RSO 1990, c H.8 (“HTA”) exception for “self-propelled implement of husbandry”, and must be insured while […]
In Kozel v The Personal Insurance Company, 2014 ONCA 130 [Kozel], a decision released on February 19, 2014, the Ontario Court of Appeal considered the scope of relief from forfeiture pursuant to section 98 of the Courts of Justice Act, RSO 1990, c C.43 [CJA], in the context of an automobile insurance claim.
In Pastore v Aviva Canada Inc, 2012 ONCA 642, a unanimous Court of Appeal established a new, lower threshold for catastrophic impairment. The decision also permitted the inclusion of chronic pain in the assessment of mental disorder overturning an earlier Divisional Court decision.
As the proverb goes, when a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to hear it, did it happen at all? When a tree hits a man while he is driving, and Quebec has a no-fault insurance law, then does that mean that, for civil liability purposes, it did not happen at […]
On Christmas Eve in 2001, a car crash left Robert Kusnierz with numerous injuries, the most serious of which required the amputation of his left leg below the knee. Kusnierz sues his insurer, Economical Mutual Insurance Company, for a declaration that he sustained a “catastrophic impairment” under clause 2(1.1)(f) of the Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule – […]
Today, the Supreme Court of Canada ("SCC") will release judgment in Gibbens v Co-operators Life Insurance Company, 2008 BCCA 153, an interesting case hinging on the proper interpretation of an insurance policy. I concede that issues surrounding insurance law may not seem terribly interesting at first rub, but the respondent’s extraordinary circumstances give rise to a […]
Last Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada ("SCC") delivered their decision in Teck Cominco Metals v Lloyd’s Underwriter’s, 2009 SCC 11. The private international law decision dealt with Teck Cominco’s attempt to have proceedings in British Columbia stayed because of an assertion of jurisdiction over the same matter in a U.S. Court. In a unanimous decision […]