Court File and Parties

BARRIE COURT FILE NO.: CV-16-1574 DATE: 20200220 SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE - ONTARIO

RE: Rose Sgambelluri, Plaintiff AND: Canadian National Railway Company, Defendant AND: RBC Life Insurance Company AND: The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company

BEFORE: The Hon. Madam Justice S.E. Healey

COUNSEL: Adam Karakolis, Counsel for the Plaintiff/Responding Party Ara Basmadjian, Counsel for the Defendant/Moving Party

HEARD: January 21, 2020

Endorsement

[1] The relief requested in this motion is granted. The plaintiff concedes that the “gateway criteria” for success on a motion under r. 6.01 are met. Further, an examination of the relevant criteria favors the order sought:

(a) At their core, each action examines the extent of the plaintiff’s injuries and her attempts to mitigate; (b) There need be no delay occasioned by this order, as there remains ample time for the plaintiff to complete discoveries of the insurance defendants before the pretrial in the tort action set for May 15, 2020, and the plaintiff began those actions in 2017 and 2018 and accordingly has previously had ample time to complete those steps; (c) The two insurance defendants are not opposing this motion and accordingly believe they can be ready for pretrial in May. This court has no evidence to support the submission that the order sought will delay the tort action due to defence medicals being sought; (d) Judicial economy supports the order sought, and the issues are all standard fare for trial judges to manage; (e) The medical evidence will be overlapping if not identical; (f) To prevent inconsistent outcomes and avoid multiplicity of proceedings; (g) Discovery of the plaintiff has been completed in all actions; (h) While there may be additional heads of damage in the tort action, trial together will permit quick calculation of any deductions for these collateral benefits if awarded.

[2] Accordingly, I can find no true prejudice to the plaintiff as there is no real basis for delay to be a real factor. The earliest trial date following pretrial will be November 2020 and there is ample time to be trial-ready by then. The interests of justice support the order sought.

[3] Costs of the motion payable by the plaintiff to the moving party fixed in the sum of $6,500 payable in any event of the cause (at time of trial or settlement).

HEALEY J. Date of Endorsement: January 21, 2020 Date of Release: February 20, 2020