The acquittal of Saskatchewan farmer Gerald Stanley earlier this month in the shooting death of Colten Boushie has sparked calls for changes to the jury selection process to ensure juries are more representative of the makeup of the local community.
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Therapy dog allowed in civil jury trial
A therapy dog was allowed in court to sit at the feet of the plaintiff while she testified in an Ontario Superior Court civil jury trial late last fall in what is believed to be a first in the province for this type of assistance in personal injury litigation.
Don’t Delay on Claiming Rights to LTD Benefits – Even if You Have a Lawyer
A recent case raises an interesting issue: For the purposes of suing an insurer for ceasing to pay disability benefits, does your right to sue start on the date those benefits are cut off, or only after the insurer definitively advises that your ongoing claim is being denied?
http://www.vandykelaw.ca/2018/
Only one of 80 Ontario doctors flagged by province to face disciplinary hearing over opioid prescriptions
Ontario’s medical regulator has decided to send just one physician to a formal disciplinary hearing after wrapping up investigations into more than 80 doctors who prescribed extremely high doses of opioids to their patients.
Consumer sends second letter to Ontario Civil Rules Committee – worth a read!
“When judges refuse to allow prior adverse judicial comments to be adduced as a means to challenge expert impartiality, they are conflating a judicial expectation of impartiality (in accordance with the Form 53) with a judicial presumption of impartiality. But as Master Short pointed out, without enforcement of the Form 53 promise such a presumption is unsafe. Taking for granted that long-time partisan experts will honour their Form 53 promise to be impartial is judicial folly of the worst sort.”
‘Bully’ bosses issue ‘swept under the carpet’ until junior government lawyer sent email
A junior lawyer’s decision to speak out — with an email copied to dozens of government lawyers — about an allegedly “abusive” boss at Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney General caused Queen’s Park to finally take notice of historic problems that were later called a “festering” sore in a government report.
Determination of Fault in Left Hand Turn Collisions
In our practice, we often see cases where both drivers involved in a collision thought they had the right of way. Often, such cases involve a situation where one driver is proceeding straight through an intersection and the other is attempting to make a left turn on a yellow (or amber) light. The driver proceeding straight believes they have the right of way. At the same time, the driver making the left turn believes that the driver going straight is required to stop and, so, they have the right of way to make their turn.
http://otlablog.com/determinat
Inside Ontario’s Big, Bold Basic Income Experiment
Alana Baltzer bought her first new winter coat recently. She’s eating vegetables and fruit now instead of junk food. And, because she’s not worrying about money, she’s having fewer bipolar episodes. The money-stress triggers are gone. She’s also applied to college and is looking for work.
https://www.fastcompany.com/40
Prabaharan v. RBC General Insurance Company, 2018 ONSC 1186 (CanLII)
[10] In the present case, the plaintiff retained and instructed most of her experts well in advance of the scheduled January 10, 2018, PTC. She served a series of medical and other expert reports, and addenda as follows: on September 5, September 18, October 20, October 31, November 21, December 3, December 18 and December 27, 2017. While not all of these reports were served 90 days before the PTC (and some were not required to meet that deadline because they were addenda) it is apparent that the plaintiff was endeavouring to disclose her case – and in particular the requisite medical and expert evidence – in advance of the PTC.
[11] By contrast, the defendant served no expert reports prior to the PTC. The defendant did not take any steps to request the plaintiff to attend for or to arrange defence IMEs until less than one week before the PTC. Indeed, according to defence counsel, the client only provided instructions to proceed with defence IMEs one week before the PTC. Fearful that the defendant’s delay in doing so might jeopardize the timely trial of the case (due to the possible inability to obtain reply reports) plaintiff’s counsel declined to produce his client for examination. The result will likely be a Master’s motion to compel such attendance, another consumption of judicial resources. Had the defendant requested an IME on a timely basis, this problem would not have arisen.
[12] The defendant’s failure to serve its experts reports on a timely basis – or even to take any steps in furtherance of this obligation – was a flagrant breach of the requirements set out in rule 53.03(1) and (2). An experienced litigant such as the defendant, cannot defer indefinitely its duty to provide responding expert reports. Indeed, it smacks of unfairness for such a party to, on the one hand, require the plaintiff to provide medical evidence to meet the requirements of O. Reg. 461/96 as amended by O. Reg. 381/03, yet be unprepared to disclose its case on that fundamental issue in response.
[13] The other, obvious, consequence of the failure of the defendant to serve any expert reports as required by the rules was that there was no responding material for the other side or the presiding judge to evaluate and discuss at the PTC. This had the effect of impairing significantly the PTC settlement process. As commented previously, whether this is a case that could have settled at the PTC stage is impossible to know, because the defendant failed to comply with the rules.
“No question” that Aviva Canada plans to hike auto rates: CEO
There is “no question” that Canada’s second-largest insurer, Aviva Canada, is contemplating country-wide rate increases in personal auto, Greg Somerville, the company’s president and CEO, told Canadian Underwriter Thursday.