In Pastore v Aviva, 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. Facts In this case, the Court was faced with a plaintiff injured in a motor vehicle accident. [...]

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 will release judgment in Co-operators Life Insurance Company v. Gibbens, 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 number [...]

Last Friday, the 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 penned by McLachlin [...]

On Friday November 21, 2008 the SCC released its 4-3 judgment awarding the appellants $30 million in Canadian National Railway Co. v. Royal and Sun Alliance Insurance Co. of Canada, 2008 SCC 66. This case involved a 14-year dispute between Canadian National Railway Co. (CNR) and its group of property insurers including Royal and Sun [...]

Today, the Supreme Court of Canada will render its judgment in the application for leave to appeal from Patti Tomasson v. Attorney General of Canada 2007 FCA 265. At issue is whether the provisions of the Employment Insurance Act, which grant certain maternity benefits only to biological mothers, discriminate against adoptive mothers within the meaning [...]

During his yearly deer-hunting party, Fred Wolfe was driving to a hunting stand when he spotted what he believed to be a deer. He emerged from his truck, and with the aid of his car’s headlights, shot at the object in question. It was, in fact, the respondent Harold George Herbison, who suffered significant injuries [...]

In 2005, the SCC released Royal Bank of Canada v. State Farm Fire and Casualty Company, an appeal from the Court of Appeal for Ontario which addresses the issue of whether an insurer, on the basis of a statutory condition, is able to deny a claim and void coverage granted to a mortgagee for damage [...]

In last year’s Fidler v. Sun Life Insurance Co. of Canada, the Supreme Court outlined the current state of compensation for mental distress under contract law, and also explained the appropriate circumstances in which punitive damages may be awarded. While the SCC overturned the B.C. Court of Appeal’s award of punitive damages – an argument [...]