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[1] These two appeals were heard together. The plaintiff, Ms. Abbott, was in two separate motor vehicle accidents. She sued the defendants. These actions were settled. Part of that settlement required that the party and party costs be assessed by an Assessment Officer. This was done by Assessment Officer A. Palmer. She issued a Certificate of Assessment of Costs dated February 16, 2018. Assessment Officer Palmer reduced the costs claimed by Ms. Abbott in these two actions from $220,067.75 to $66,350.42 and awarded costs of the assessment against the plaintiff. Ms. Abbott appeals the Certificate of Assessment of Costs.
[2] Ms. Abbott raises a number of grounds of appeal: (1) The Assessment Officer erred by failing to performing a line-by-line analysis of the plaintiff’s dockets and disbursements and applied arbitrary deductions to the Bill of Costs; (2) The Assessment Officer breached the plaintiff’s rights to natural justice and procedural fairness by failing to consider the plaintiff’s objections under Rule 58.10 and only considered the defendants’ objections; 3) The Assessment Officer erred in principle in her application of the principles of proportionality and access to justice; 4) The Assessment Officer erred by applying a partial indemnity discount to the disbursements; 5) The Assessment Officer erred by reducing the costs award contrary to s. 20.1 of the Solicitor’s Act because the plaintiff’s counsel was being compensated by a contingency agreement; and 6) The Assessment Officer erred by ordering the successful plaintiff to pay the defendants’ costs of the assessment.
[3] I acknowledge that in the absence of an error in law, misapprehension of the evidence, palpable and overriding error on a factual matter, or an assessment so unreasonable that it amounts to an error in principle, an Assessment Officer’s decision is given great deference: Rabbani v. Niagara (Regional Municipality), 2012 ONCA 280 (CanLII) at para. 6. In this case, I find that no deference should be afforded as it is my view that the Assessment Officer denied the plaintiff a fair hearing by failing to provide her a fair opportunity to object to the Assessment Officer’s decision.