Timothy Parker Boland

The court dismissed a motion to strike the jury notice following closing arguments in a negligence trial arising from a motor vehicle accident.

The plaintiffs objected to 19 statements made by defence counsel in his closing address, alleging they were inflammatory, invited improper reasoning, misstated the law, and appealed to emotion.

The court found some statements objectionable but determined that corrective jury instructions were sufficient to remedy any prejudice, making discharge of the jury unnecessary.

The jury subsequently found the defendants liable in negligence, apportioning liability at 93% to one defendant and 7% to the other.

Three consolidated civil actions arose from a motor vehicle accident on April 22, 2016, near Stouffville, Ontario, involving three vehicles.

The defendant Rae argued he owed no duty of care to the plaintiffs.

The court ruled on the duty of care issue at the close of the plaintiffs' case, finding that Rae owed a duty of care to all plaintiffs as a driver to other users of the roadway.

The court applied established jurisprudence recognizing the duty of care owed by drivers to other road users and rejected Rae's arguments based on the distinction between nonfeasance and misfeasance, finding that driving is a heavily regulated activity and that the duty of care exists regardless of whether specific statutory obligations apply to the particular conduct alleged.

The plaintiff was catastrophically injured when she lost control of her vehicle on a snow-covered and icy municipal road, crossing the centre line and colliding with an oncoming vehicle.

The plaintiff sued the municipality for failing to keep the road in a reasonable state of repair.

The Superior Court of Justice found that the municipality was in the midst of a winter weather event but failed to adequately treat the road, leaving it unplowed and subject to refreezing for several hours.

The court held that the road was in a state of non-repair, which caused the collision, and that the municipality failed to establish any statutory defences under the Municipal Act.

The plaintiff was found not to be contributorily negligent, and the municipality was held fully liable for the agreed-upon damages.

During a jury trial for a slip and fall in a parking lot, the defendants (the property owner and the winter maintenance contractor) conditionally settled their crossclaims.

The plaintiff sought disclosure of the settlement agreement.

The court ordered the agreement disclosed to the court and then to the plaintiff, finding that it altered the adversarial landscape.

Consequently, the court ruled that the defendants were no longer adverse in interest and prohibited defence counsel from asking leading questions during the cross-examination of each other's witnesses, except on narrow issues where adversity remained.

During a jury trial for a slip and fall in a commercial parking lot, the defendants tendered an expert to give opinion evidence on winter maintenance standards.

The plaintiff opposed the qualification.

Following a Mohan voir dire, the court found that the proposed expert had acquired special knowledge in winter maintenance through his post-graduate training and extensive work experience.

The court qualified the witness as an expert, noting that any deficiencies in his training compared to the plaintiff's expert went to weight rather than admissibility.

The plaintiff in a slip and fall action moved to strike the jury following the defendants' opening statements, arguing that defence counsel made improper arguments, impugned plaintiff's counsel, and injected personal opinions.

The court reviewed the impugned statements and found that while some comments crossed the line into argument and unfairly bolstered credibility, the transgressions were minimally prejudicial.

The court dismissed the motion to strike the jury, concluding that a short curative instruction would adequately address the issues without compromising the plaintiff's right to a fair trial.

In a slip and fall action arising from an incident in a grocery store parking lot, the parties raised evidentiary issues regarding the admissibility of business records before the commencement of a jury trial.

The plaintiff sought to introduce Ministry of Transportation records regarding weather and road conditions, while the defendants sought to introduce daily work sheets to establish their snow and ice clearing system.

The court found both sets of records to be logically relevant to the live issues of prevailing weather conditions and the defendants' response.

The court admitted both sets of records, noting that any potential prejudice from the MTO records could be addressed with a limiting instruction to the jury.