{"id":1092,"date":"2020-05-30T15:51:51","date_gmt":"2020-05-30T19:51:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/?p=1092"},"modified":"2020-05-30T15:51:57","modified_gmt":"2020-05-30T19:51:57","slug":"ontario-stop-arguing-common-law-discovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/?p=1092","title":{"rendered":"Ontario: stop arguing common law discovery"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Divisional Court decision in Rooplal v. Fodor <\/em><\/a>holds that the Limitations Act\u2019s discovery provisions determine discoverability, not common law principles.\u00a0 16 years after the Limitations Act came into force, this is a point that still needs making.<\/p>\n

The motion judge had found the plaintiff\u2019s proceeding timely, and the Divisional Court upheld her decision:<\/p>\n

[<\/a>4]\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0On the issue of discoverability, the parties relied on ostensibly conflicting lines of jurisprudence from the Court of Appeal for Ontario. On the one hand, were the cases decided before the\u00a0Limitations Act\u00a0<\/i>had entered into force, finding that the limitation period begins to run when the material facts on which the claim is based have been discovered or ought to have been discovered by the plaintiff\u2019s exercise of reasonable diligence (July v. Neal\u00a0<\/i>(1986),\u00a01986 CanLII 149 (ON CA)<\/a>,\u00a032 D.L.R. (4th) 463<\/span><\/span>;\u00a0Johnson v. Wunderlich\u00a0<\/i>(1986),\u00a01986 CanLII 2618 (ON CA)<\/a>,\u00a034 D.L.R. (4th) 120<\/span><\/span>;\u00a0Hier v. Allstate Insurance Co. of Canada\u00a0<\/i>(1988),\u00a01988 CanLII 4741 (ON CA)<\/a>,\u00a051 D.L.R. (4th) 1<\/span><\/span>; and\u00a0Chambo v. Musseau\u00a0<\/i>(1993),\u00a01993 CanLII 8680 (ON CA)<\/a>,\u00a015 O.R. (3d) 305<\/span><\/span>. The other line of authority involves cases decided after the\u00a0Limitations Act\u00a0<\/i>had entered into force, which, as explained in the Superior Court\u2019s decision in\u00a0Chahine v. Grybas<\/i>,\u00a02014 ONSC 4698<\/span><\/a><\/span>, provided that the limitation period does not begin until the plaintiff makes an indemnification demand and the responding insurer fails to satisfy the claim (Markel Insurance Company of Canada v. ING Insurance Company of Canada<\/i>,\u00a02012 ONCA 218<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0109 O.R. (3d) 652<\/span><\/span>; and\u00a0Schmitz v. Lombard General Insurance Company of Canada<\/i>,\u00a02014 ONCA 88<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0118 O.R. (3d) 694<\/span><\/span>, leave to appeal refused, [2014] S.C.C.A. No. 143). The defendants argued that the\u00a0July\u00a0<\/i>line of cases sets out the proper discoverability analysis, while the plaintiff argued that the\u00a0Markel\u00a0<\/i>line of cases sets out the proper analysis.<\/p>\n

\u00a0[<\/a>5]\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Motions judge ultimately determined that she was bound by the\u00a0Markel\u00a0<\/i>line of authorities rather than the\u00a0July\u00a0<\/i>line of cases because, while the latter is predicated on the common law principles of discoverability set out by the Supreme Court of Canada in\u00a0Central Trust Co. v. Rafuse<\/i>,\u00a01986 CanLII 29 (SCC)<\/a>,\u00a0[1986] 2 S.C.R. 147<\/span><\/span>, the discoverability provisions in the\u00a0Limitations Act\u00a0<\/i>govern the analysis in the present case rather than the common law principles before the Court of Appeal in the\u00a0July<\/i>\u00a0<\/i>line of cases.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Divisional Court decision in Rooplal v. Fodor holds that the Limitations Act\u2019s discovery provisions determine discoverability, not common law principles.\u00a0 16 years after the Limitations Act came into force, this is a point that still needs making. The motion judge had found the plaintiff\u2019s proceeding timely, and the Divisional Court upheld her decision: [4]\u00a0\u00a0 … Continue reading Ontario: stop arguing common law discovery<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[392,87,23],"class_list":["post-1092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ontario","tag-common-law-principles","tag-discoverability","tag-ontario-act-s-5"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1092"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1094,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1092\/revisions\/1094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}