I often see defendants argue that if a plaintiff had undertaken a certain step, discovery would have occurred on an earlier date. Without evidence that the plaintiff taking this step on a specific date would have resulted in the plaintiff learning on another specific date the facts necessary for discovery, this argument is purely hypothetical and can’t succeed. The court in Ledoux v. Lee makes the point:
40. Uber also argued that Mr. Ledoux’s lawyer should have served Co-operators with a formal notice of his claim against Mr. Lee after getting the police report. Mr. Giugaru contended that this is a standard practice because it allows a plaintiff to claim pre-judgement interest from the date of the notice. Had Mr. Ledoux’s counsel put Co-Operators on formal notice of a potential claim, he argued, the insurer might have advised the plaintiff of the coverage issue and disclosed Mr. Lee’s activity as an Uber driver.
41. This argument is speculative. I could not conclude, on the evidence before me, that it is standard practice for plaintiff’s counsel in MVA claims to formally notify the defendant motorist’s insurer of a potential claim. Even if I had been able to, I could not infer that a formal notice letter to Co-Operators would have yielded information about its position on coverage. Mr. Ledoux’s lawyers were in communication with Co-Operators from September 2017 forward, providing it with a copy of the police report and Mr. Ledoux’s hospital record. There is no evidence that, in the course of this correspondence, the adjuster ever so much as hinted that it might deny coverage or disclosed that Mr. Lee was participating in the gig economy, even though it notified the insured of its denial of coverage on this basis two weeks after the accident.
