Category Archives: Auto

Cases dealing with auto insurance, personal injuries (MVA-related), accident benefits.

C.A. Says Father and Daugher Were “Co-owners” of Car

In Mazur v. Elias, the Court of Appeal has endorsed the notion of “co-ownership” of automobiles. The case involves the often-seen fact pattern of a car being purchased by one person but licensed and insured in the name of another. … Continue reading

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Threshold Decision Favours Plaintiff But Jury Sees Case Differently

Regular readers of our Updates know that just when insurance defence lawyers and their clients were beginning to despair of ever winning a threshold motion, a series of decisions were handed down that favoured the defence. But a Superior Court … Continue reading

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C.A. Says That Relief From Forfeiture Not Usually Available for Pre-loss Conduct

In the space of a week, two appellate decisions have dealt with relief from forfeiture. First, the Supreme Court of Canada issued its ruling in Marche v. Halifax Insurance (about which we sent an Update last week). Today, the Court … Continue reading

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Threshold Ruling Does Not Imply Causal Connection

The Court of Appeal has just released an important decision that will be of interest to those handling MVA claims. In Igbokwe v. Price, the court ruled that the trial judge’s finding, that the plaintiff’s injuries met the Insurance Act … Continue reading

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Threshold Motion Succeeds

The Divisional Court’s decision in Frankfurter v. Gibbons, which was the subject of an earlier Update, has already been applied in an Ontario Superior Court trial decision. In Bridgewater v. James, Mr. Justice Herman J. Wilton-Siegel cited the Frankfurter decision … Continue reading

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No Duty to Remind Insured of Excluded Driver Endorsement

In Hunter v. Economical Insurance Group, Mr. Justice Robert MacKinnon of the Ontario Superior Court has ruled that an excluded driver endorsement was not ambiguous and that even though the accident occurred three years after the endorsement was issued, the … Continue reading

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Divisional Court Reverses Trial Finding that Injury Was “Serious”

In a decision that was good news for insurers, the Ontario Divisional Court has reversed the finding of Superior Court Justice Wilton-Siegel, that injuries suffered in a 1999 MVA met the threshold under s. 267.5(5) of the Insurance Act . … Continue reading

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Assessing MVA Damages in 2005

There will soon be some significant changes to the way that BI damages are assessed in MVA cases. In this edition of our Update, we will try to assist you in applying these new principles.

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When is a Car not a Car?

The case of Meadowview Heights Ltd. v. Revivo raises some issues reminiscent of our undergraduate philosophy course in “Personal Identity”. But on a more prosaic level, the case is a useful interpreation of the exclusion, found in both homeowner’s and … Continue reading

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Detailed Analysis of “Catastrophic Impairment”

In Desbiens v. Mordini, Mr. Justice Harvey Spiegel has written a very lengthy, comprehensive set of reasons in a personal injury case in which one of the key issues was the interpretation of “catastrophic impairment” in Regulation 461/96 of the … Continue reading

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