3] The plaintiff claimed more than $1.2 million in general and special damages as compensation for the injuries and losses that he says he sustained as a result of the motor vehicle accident. The trial lasted 12 days. The usual experts for both sides gave the usual testimony. And the jury gave the usual verdict. The jury awarded the plaintiff just $3,000 for general damages and nothing at all for past or future income loss, medical care, and housekeeping costs.
[9] While jury trials in civil cases seem to exist in Ontario solely to keep damages awards low in the interest of insurance companies, rather than to facilitate injured parties being judged by their peers, the fact is that the jury system is still the law of the land. This jury has spoken and did so loud and clear. If I find that the plaintiff has proven that he met the threshold, I would not only be making findings of law, but I necessarily would have to disagree with the findings of fact that are implicit in the jury’s decision. Yet I told the jury an obnoxious number of times in my charge that they, and only they, were the judges of the facts of the case. I told them that their community had called upon them to take 12 days out of their lives so that they could make findings that only they can make in an act of central importance to our democratic traditions. How can I legitimately now consider whether I find facts that the jury rejected?