Source: http://bc-injury-law.com/blog/2009/01
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 15:50:37+00:00

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I’ve blogged about most if not all of the recent reported BC Supreme Court judgements applying the new Rule 37B and don’t intend to summarize a history of the rule here (for a history of the rule and to read my previous articles on Rule 37B cases simply use the search feature on this site and type Rule 37B).
Reasons for judgement were released today considering an interesting issue. Rule 37B, once it came into force, repealed Rule 37. In recognizing that a transition period was necessary the rule permitted costs consequences to flow from formal offers delivered under the old Rule 37 if those offers were made before July 2, 2008. Today;s case decided what costs consequences should flow when an old Rule 37 offer is accepted after Rule 37B comes into effect.
 Both parties advanced arguments that the court has discretion under Rule 37B to make an order regarding costs. However, it is my opinion that the court has no discretion to make an order regarding costs in this matter. Mr. Buttar accepted the offer put forth by the defendants, including the offer regarding costs, without reservation. It is my view that Rule 37B does not confer a discretion on the court to set aside an agreement that has been entered into between the parties regarding costs.
2. Costs to be taxed in accordance with Rule 37(22) and (37).
 Although Rule 37 was repealed and replaced by Rule 37B, by incorporating the wording of Rule 37(22), the offer provided that the defendants would pay costs to the plaintiff to the date the offer was delivered and that, if the matter were to continue, the defendants would be entitled to their costs from the date of delivery. Former Rule 37(22) provided that if an offer made by a defendant was accepted by a plaintiff, the plaintiff is entitled to costs to the day of the offer, and the defendant is entitled to costs from the date of the offer.
 In this case, there has been no determination of any issues in this lawsuit. Rather, Mr. Buttar accepted the offer to settle as presented by the defendants.
We confirm that there have been no advances under Tort or under Part 7 to our client.
We accept the Defendants’ Offer to Settle dated April 28, 2008.
I note that the Defendants’ Offer to Settle was made under the old Rule 37, but our acceptance of that offer is clearly under the new Rule 37B which does not provide a form for acceptance. As such, out of an abundance of caution, I also enclose an Acceptance of Offer in Form 65A.
 On this application, the parties argued the effects of Rule 37B(4),which provides that the award of costs is discretionary, and Rule 37B(5)(a), which provides that the court may do one or both of the following: deprive a party, in whole or in part, to costs that would otherwise be entitled to and award double costs of all, or some, of the steps taken in litigation after the date of the delivery of the offer to settle.
 I agree that subrules 37B(4) and (5) are permissive. However, it is my view that the court has no discretion to consider costs in this matter because Mr. Buttar accepted an offer which contained a term as to when costs would be payable and to whom.
 Accordingly, Mr. Buttar’s application is dismissed. The defendants are entitled to the costs of this application.
How Can $125,000 really equal $0 in an ICBC Claim?
Costs consequences, that’s how. If ICBC beats their formal offer at trial they can be awarded costs under Rule 37B. These costs can sometimes exceed the amount of a judgement and reasons for judgement were released today by the BC Supreme Court demonstrating this principle.
As stated, the plaintiff received judgment. The defendants’ costs and disbursements from the time of the offers may exceed the judgment. This is an appropriate factor to consider in determining the appropriate order for costs. It is not sufficient, in my view, to deny the defendants their costs arising from the offers to settle. If the aim of the rule is to encourage reasonable settlements, denying the defendants their costs in the circumstance does not meet that aim. It may be a reason to deny the defendants double costs, but the defendants have not sought double costs in this matter. While it is an important factor to consider, it is not sufficient, in and of itself, to extinguish defendants’ entitlement to the costs.
Cases such as this which illustrate the potential costs consequences of an unsuccessful ICBC claim need to be reviewed when considering claim settlement. Trials come with risk and settlement offers have to be weighed against this risk. Reasons for judgement don’t always reflect who the real winner is. In ICBC claims the real winner is often the party that beats their formal settlement offer and this is not always revealed in judgements.
1. “…Rule 37B is permissive in nature and provides the Court with a broad discretion to award double costs”: Radke v. Parry, 2008 BCSC 1397 at ¶37.
2. “…there are important differences between Rule 37B and the predecessor rules, Rule 37 and Rule 37A. Notwithstanding the differences … the underlying legislative policy remains the same. The goal has been and remains to encourage the early settlement of disputes ‘… by rewarding the party who makes an early and reasonable settlement offer, and by penalizing the party who declines to accept such an offer’ (see MacKenzie v. Brooks, 1999 BCCA 623, 130 BCAC 95…)”:Radke ¶38.
3. “Subrule (5) is permissive. It empowers the court to make either type of order mentioned in the subrule. By necessary implication, it contemplates that the court may make an order that denies one of the two forms of relief set out in the subrule”: BCSPCA v. Baker, 2008 BCSC 947at ¶ 15.
4. “[Subrule (5)] does not specifically state that it is possible for the court to order costs to a defendant where an offer to settle was in an amount greater than the judgment. Nevertheless, that is implied in the rule. If the court can deprive a party of costs or order double costs, it must also be able to order costs, the intermediate step between those two extremes”: Arnold v. Cartwright Estate, 2008 BCSC 1575 at ¶15.
5. “One of the goals of Rule 37B … is to promote settlements by providing that there will be consequences in the amount of costs payable when a party fails to accept an offer that ought reasonably to have been accepted. That goal would be frustrated if Rule 37B(5) did not permit the court the option of awarding costs of all or some of the steps taken in a proceeding after the date of delivery of an offer to settle”: Arnold at ¶16.
 In all of the circumstances, applying the factors addressed by the Rules and the parties, I find that it is reasonable that the defendants recover their taxable costs and disbursements in this action.
 I therefore order that the defendants Paul be awarded their taxable costs and disbursements from June 8, 2005 onwards. The plaintiff is entitled to her taxable costs and disbursements in the Paul action up to June 8, 2005 only.
 The defendants Brandy are awarded their taxable costs and disbursements from October 26, 2006 onwards and the plaintiff is entitled to recover her taxable costs and disbursements in the Brandy action up until October 26, 2006.
What interested me most in these reasons was the judge’s refusal to look at the fact that the Defendant was insured with ICBC when weighing the relative financial circumstances of the parties under Rule 37B(6). The courts are currently split on whether this is a relevant factor and once the BC Courts come up with a consistent analysis of this topic it will be easier for ICBC claims lawyers to better predict the costs consequences for their clients following trial. Hopefully the BC Court of Appeal has an opportunity to shed some light on this subject in the near future.
Just last week I posted about ‘costs’ awards in Supreme Court when an ICBC clam’s value is assessed below $25,000 (the current monetary jurisdiction of BC’s small claims court). Today, reasons for judgment were released shedding more light on this topic.
In today’s case the Plaintiff was injured in a 2005 rear-end crash. ICBC took the ‘low velocity impact’ position and argued that the Plaintiff did not suffer any compensable damages as a result of this crash. The Plaintiff disagreed and argued that he suffered injuries worth several thousand dollars.
Both the Plaintiff and ICBC agreed on at least one thing, and that is that this claim was for injuries with a financial value that was in the Small Claims Court’s jurisdiction and this was obvious even before the Plaintiff filed in Supreme Court.
As discussed in my previous post, the key analysis to Supreme Court ‘costs’ in such a case is governed by Rule 57 and whether the Plaintiff had ‘sufficient reason’ for bringing the lawsuit in Supreme Court. Clearly if the Plaintiff knew the case was worth less than $25,000 at the time he started the lawsuit he could not have had sufficient reason for suing in Supreme Court, right? Not necessarily.
 The Plaintiff here emphasizes the “opportunity to take advantage of the pre-trial preparation to which [the Plaintiff] was entitled”. In this case liability was denied. Causation was denied. Contributory negligence was alleged. At trial a failure to mitigate was alleged.
 In this case the Defendant by denying liability, causation, and reimbursement for special damages, required that the Plaintiff to prove all of these things in court. The Defendant gave important evidence regarding the speed of impact, the consequences of the impact, and concern over the Plaintiff’s condition, which, I am advised, was revealed on discovery.
 In my view the position of the Defendant justified the Plaintiff pursuing this case in Supreme Court, where pre-trial discovery is available. A similar determination was made in cases such as Tucker v. Brown, 2008 BCSC 734, Faedo v. Dowell and Wacher, 2007 BCSC 1985, and Kanani v. Misiurna, 2008 BCSC 1274.
 There is the additional factor that, as in Faedo and Kanani, the Plaintiff faced an institutional defendant which, in the ordinary course, has counsel. To obtain any recovery the Plaintiff is forced to go to court, where he is facing counsel and counsel is reasonably required, but in Provincial Court there is no way of recovering the costs of counsel.
 In the circumstances, the Plaintiff is entitled to costs, pursuant to Rule 66.
As a personal injury lawyer I often hear comments along the following lines during initial consulrations “The cops didn’t give me a ticket so I’m not at fault” or “the other guy was ticketed for speeding so he was totally at fault“.
A common misconception is that if a driver is in violation of the motor vehicle act they are always at fault if involved in a motor vehicle collision. This is not the case and reasons for judgement were released today by the BC Supreme Court illustrating this principle.
If a person is violating the motor vehicle act at the time of the collision that violation has to be a causative factor in a collision for the act to constitute negligence. For example, a drunk driver who is clearly in violation of the motor vehicle act could have his/her vehicle rear-ended and be faultless for the collision despite being drunk.
In today’s case the Plaintiff (a taxi driver) was travelling through an intersection in Vancouver, BC with the right of way. He was travelling an estimated 85 kmph which was above the posted speed limit. At the same time the Defendant, coming from the opposite direction, turned left in the path of the Plaintiff’s vehicle and a collision occurred.
The Plaintiff argued that the defendant was fully at fault for failing to yield the right of way, the Defendant argued that the Plaintiff was at fault for speeding and had the Plaintiff been driving a lawful speed this collision would not have occurred.
 …if an approaching car is so close to the intersection when a driver attempts to make a left turn that a collision threatens unless there be some violent or sudden avoiding action on the part of the driver of the approaching car, the approaching car is an “immediate hazard” within the meaning of sec. 164 [now s. 174].
 Mr. Naeem was entitled to assume that all other drivers would observe the rules of the road. He was not required by law to slow down as he approached the intersection. The existence of the eastbound left turn lane did not cast a duty on Mr. Naeem to take extra care: Pacheco at para. 15.
 Mr. Garrett never saw the taxi before the collision so that those cases where a left-turning driver wrongly estimates the speed of the approaching vehicle are not of assistance.
 Mr. Garrett, if he exercised reasonable care, should have been able to see the taxi coming east past Fremlin Street more than a block away. While he suggests that perhaps a traffic sign partially blocked his view, I find, based on the videotape, that was not the case. If I am wrong and the traffic sign partially blocked his view, he should have taken more reasonable care before he encroached into the westbound lane.
 Mr. Garrett would have seen the taxi if he had been looking. He saw the two westbound vehicles turn right onto the Oak Street on-ramp. He saw the right turn signal of one of those vehicles. He may have been so focussed on the right-turning vehicles that he did not see Mr. Naeem, but that does not absolve him from liability. The law required him to yield the right of way to the westbound vehicles.
 If Mr. Garrett seeks to cast any blame onto Mr. Naeem for the collision, he must establish that after Mr. Naeem became aware, or by the exercise of reasonable care should have become aware, of Mr. Garrett’s disregard of the law, he had sufficient opportunity to avoid the accident: Walker v. Brownlee at 461.
 Travelling over the speed limit will only constitute negligence if the speed prevented the driver from taking reasonable measure to avoid the collision. However, the experts agree that the moment that Mr. Garrett encroached onto the westbound lane, it was impossible for Mr. Naeem to avoid the collision.
 The next issue is whether the collision could have been avoided if Mr. Naeem drove at a lower speed or at the speed limit. The speed of a vehicle and the location of the vehicle are related. It is impossible for Mr. Naeem to have been travelling at about 85 kilometres per hour along Marine Drive and then instantly change to the posted speed limit 40 metres from where the collision occurred. As Mr. Naeem argues, if he had kept to 30 kilometres per hour from the outset, he would have been back in Burnaby when Mr. Garrett ploughed across oncoming traffic that morning. If he sped along at 120 kilometres per hour he would have cleared the area well before Mr. Garrett made his left-hand turn.
 While it seems attractive to attribute blame based on the speed of the dominant driver and hypothesize on what would have happened if Mr. Naeem kept to the speed limit, the fact is that Mr. Naeem drove at the speed he did and there was nothing he could have done, driving at the speed he did, to avoid the collision. When Mr. Garrett decided to proceed with his left-hand turn, Mr. Naeem was approximately 40 metres away. He was an immediate hazard and Mr. Garrett should have yielded to him.
 I find Mr. Garrett fully at fault for the accident.
 I note that counsel for the plaintiffs made no argument as to the costs. If the parties have not otherwise agreed, I find Mr. Garrett liable for the costs of the two actions.
One thing that I find irritating as a personal injury lawyer is when cases with merit are mis-reported by the media and spun as ‘frivolous lawsuits’.
Yes there are frivolous lawsuits out there. Yes some of the facts behind such cases are, to say the least, embarrassing for the profession. But there are many cases with merit that at quick glance can appear frivolous but with deeper digging simply are not so.
Reasons for judgement in such a case were released today by the BC Court of Appeal. In this case the Plaintiff suffered serious injuries when struck by a motor vehicle while crossing a marked cross-walk. The trial court found that the District of Campbell River and the Telus Corporation were each 20% at fault for this crash for the negligent placement of a utility pole. How can a utility pole be at fault for a crash between a motorist and a pedestrian? I could see this getting spun the wrong way so I thought I would take the first crack at reporting this case.
 Around 9:00 p.m. on 3 January 2003, in Campbell River, Robert Simpson was walking home from his job as a pharmacist. It was dark and raining. Mr. Simpson, who was wearing dark clothing and carrying an umbrella, stepped into a marked crosswalk from the south side of a wooden utility pole and was struck by a southbound pick-up truck driven by Mr. Baechler.
 The utility pole was embedded in the sidewalk on the northwest corner of the intersection. Its near edge was about 14.6 inches from the curb. Telus Corporation, part owner of the utility pole, had installed a plastic pilaster on the westerly aspect of the pole, to protect some cables. With the pilaster, the pole was about 18.9 inches wide at eye level and 23.6 inches wide at its base. (BC Hydro was co-owner of the utility pole. Mr. Simpson’s action against BC Hydro settled and was dismissed by consent).
 The pole had not always been embedded in the sidewalk. It was originally west of the sidewalk, but in the process of widening Dogwood Street in the 1980s the pole’s base was incorporated into the sidewalk.
 In 1996, Campbell River, the RCMP and the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia identified Dogwood Street between 11th and 13th Avenues as accident prone and problematic with respect to traffic operations. An engineering firm studied the corridor, found that the pole obscured pedestrians from the view of southbound drivers, and recommended (among other things) the relocation of the utility pole.
 In 1997, Campbell River authorized relocation of the pole. BC Hydro agreed. Telus Corporation was opposed, apparently because its cables were an impediment. All of the other recommended improvements to the intersection were made, but the pole remained where it had been.
 The location of the utility pole was a continuing safety concern for Campbell River. It was recognized as a safety hazard by the City’s engineering services manager. In 2001, a second safety review of the Dogwood corridor found that the Dogwood Street and 12th Avenue intersection had a low accident frequency and severity history, but that rear-end collisions occurred in the southbound lanes with “relatively high” “pedestrian involvement”. A new plan to modify the corridor was approved.
 The trial judge held that the T intersection at 12th Avenue and Dogwood Street had “long been considered dangerous among Campbell River residents (para. 6). He also found that Mr. Baechler was familiar with the intersection (para. 40) and with its “dangerous nature” (para. 23).
 In 2003, after the accident involving Mr. Simpson and Mr. Baechler, the utility pole was relocated about 3 metres away and the other Telus equipment reinstalled. The cost of about $3,000 was shared by Telus, BC Hydro, and Campbell River. The obstruction to visibility was eliminated.
 Embedded in the sidewalk as the utility pole remained at 9:00 p.m. on the night of 3 January 2003, when Mr. Baechler was driving home after dinner with some friends, and Mr. Simpson was walking home after work, the pole continued to obscure the view of pedestrians on its south side looking north for vehicles and the view of southbound drivers looking for pedestrians on the northwest corner of the intersection.
 There was ample evidence to support the finding that the pole was a contributing cause of the accident. There was evidence that the pole presented a hazard known to both Telus and Campbell River that they had failed to remove. The learned trial judge found that had the pole not obstructed his view, Mr. Simpson would have been able to see and would have seen Mr. Baechler’s vehicle approaching. Telus and Campbell River have not established any error with respect to that factual finding. Mr. Simpson’s failure to see oncoming traffic when he had the opportunity to do so does not render “irrelevant” the fact of his view’s being obstructed by the hazardous utility pole as he waited to cross the street. I would not disturb the finding of the trial judge that the utility pole was a cause of the accident.
When frivolous lawsuits are reported the cases are worth taking a detailed look at. In this case there was compelling pre accident evidence that the pole “obscured pedestrians from view of drivers” and that this created a hazard with “relatively high” “pedestrian involvment” yet to save about $3,000 this known hazard was not moved!
Don’t always believe the headlines that summarize lengthy legal proceedings in a sound bite. Surly there are frivolous cases out there but decisions such as this one show that things are not always as they first appear. This case also illustrates that the discovery powers given to litigants in the BC Supreme Court can go a long way in uncovering blameworthy conduct which is not so apparent at first glance.

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