Patrick Ho

The plaintiff sought substantial costs following a jury trial where she was awarded modest damages for a motor vehicle accident, despite claiming over $1,000,000.

The defendant had made no monetary offer to settle prior to trial.

The court awarded the plaintiff $300,000 in costs, disbursements, and HST, reducing the plaintiff's requested amount due to proportionality and excessive counsel.

The judge criticized the defendant's "hardball" litigation strategy of offering zero, finding it unreasonable and wasteful of court resources, and emphasized that such conduct necessitated the trial.

This ruling addresses motions brought by both the plaintiff and the defendant during a jury trial for damages arising from a motor vehicle accident.

The plaintiff moved to strike a jury question regarding contributory negligence, arguing a lack of reasonable evidence.

The defendant moved to strike or amend jury questions concerning past and future income loss, asserting insufficient particularization and speculative nature.

The court dismissed both motions, finding that there was reasonable evidence to allow all questions to proceed to the jury.

The judge determined that the jury could reasonably infer contributory negligence from the plaintiff's testimony and that sufficient evidence, including actuarial testimony and employment history, supported the income loss claims, even without specific retirement dates or exhaustive employment scenarios.

The plaintiff brought a motion to amend its Amended Fresh as Amended Statement of Claim to add a claim for punitive and exemplary damages arising from the defendant insurer’s handling of an insurance claim.

The defendant opposed the amendment, arguing that it introduced a new cause of action outside the applicable limitation period and that no consent had been provided.

The court held that the proposed amendment alleged a new cause of action based on breach of a duty of good faith in the investigation and assessment of the claim.

The existing pleadings did not contain sufficient factual allegations to support punitive damages without the proposed amendment.

As the amendment was brought well after the limitation period expired and did not merely add an alternative remedy based on already pleaded facts, leave to amend was refused.