{"id":273,"date":"2015-07-02T19:20:41","date_gmt":"2015-07-02T23:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/?p=273"},"modified":"2015-07-02T19:20:41","modified_gmt":"2015-07-02T23:20:41","slug":"ontario-limitation-period-applies-to-adding-third-party-defendants-to-a-main-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/?p=273","title":{"rendered":"Ontario: limitation period applies to adding third party defendants to a main claim"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/canlii.ca\/t\/gjg82\" target=\"_blank\">Klein v. Stiller<\/a> considers whether the plaintiff undertook sufficient due diligence to discover her slip and fall claim against a security firm.\u00a0 What makes this otherwise standard limitations issue noteworthy is Master Dash&#8217;s commentary on the potential implication of the<em> <a href=\"http:\/\/canlii.ca\/t\/2l\" target=\"_blank\">Occupiers&#8217; Liability Act<\/a> <\/em>on a statute-barred claim.<\/p>\n<p>The plaintiff argued that there would be no harm in adding the security firm to her action despite the expiry of the presumptive limitation period because it was already a third party defendant.\u00a0 Master Dash was not satisfied that this was a valid justification to add the firm (it&#8217;s not), but considered the practicalities of adding the firm.<\/p>\n<p>He noted that\u00a0section 6 of the Occupiers&#8217; Liability Act exempts occupiers from liability for damage caused by work they reasonably entrusted to an independent contractor.\u00a0 It could potentially \u00a0exempt the defendants to the main claim from liability; if so, they would have no reason to seek indemnity\u00a0 from the security firm by third party proceeding.\u00a0 There would then be no third party claim against the security firm, and so the third party claim against the security\u00a0firm\u00a0couldn&#8217;t\u00a0be a reason to allow the plaintiff to add it\u00a0to the main action.<\/p>\n<p>This makes sense. \u00a0The problem is that\u00a0its premise is invalid.\u00a0 The analysis\u00a0assumes that there\u00a0could be a circumstance where a plaintiff could\u00a0add a party to a claim despite the expiry of the limitation period, in this case because of the\u00a0Occupiers Liability Act or the fact of third party claim. \u00a0Not so: with the <a href=\"http:\/\/canlii.ca\/t\/1xbfm\" target=\"_blank\">abolition of the the doctrine of special circumstances<\/a> (for claims subject to the Limitations Act, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ontariocourts.ca\/decisions\/2014\/2014ONCA0352.htm\" target=\"_blank\">but maybe not\u00a0for claims subject to\u00a0the <em>Trustee Act<\/em><\/a>), without exception\u00a0a plaintiff cannot add a party to an action once the claim is statute-barred .<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Klein v. Stiller considers whether the plaintiff undertook sufficient due diligence to discover her slip and fall claim against a security firm.\u00a0 What makes this otherwise standard limitations issue noteworthy is Master Dash&#8217;s commentary on the potential implication of the Occupiers&#8217; Liability Act on a statute-barred claim. The plaintiff argued that there would be no &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/?p=273\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Ontario: limitation period applies to adding third party defendants to a main claim<\/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":[124,125,123,121],"class_list":["post-273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ontario","tag-adding-a-party","tag-blame-the-security-guard","tag-occupiers-liability-act-ontario","tag-special-circumstances"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273","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=273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":274,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions\/274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}