There is a category of limitations jurisprudence\u00a0that decides issues which shouldn’t need deciding. Three decisions recently expanded it.<\/p>\n
Having commenced a proceeding by notice of action within the limitation period, can a plaintiff add defendants to the proceeding outside the limitation period by naming them as defendant in the statement of claim? No, obviously, the court held in Bercovici v. Attorney General of Canada<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n [13]\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0The plaintiff\u2019s action was commenced by notice of action.\u00a0 Under rules 14.03(1)(a) and (2), where a plaintiff commences an action by notice of action, the notice of action, and not the statement of claim, is the originating process.\u00a0 Under rule 14.06(1), the originating process shall contain \u201ca title of the proceeding setting out the names of all the parties\u201d.\u00a0 Therefore, where the originating process is a notice of action, it is the title of proceeding in the notice of action that identifies the parties to the action.<\/p>\n [14]\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0The plaintiff relies on rule 14.03(2), which provides that a notice of action contain \u201ca\u00a0short<\/i><\/b>\u00a0statement of the nature of the claim\u201d [emphasis added] and rule 14.03(5), which provides that \u201cin an action commenced by the issuing of a notice of action, the statement of claim may alter or extend the claim stated in the notice of action\u201d.\u00a0 The plaintiff argues that these two rules read together allow the plaintiff to add to the statement of claim both claims\u00a0and parties<\/i><\/b>\u00a0not included in the notice of action.\u00a0 Specifically, the plaintiff submits that where the notice of action referred to the conduct of \u201cresponsible officials\u201d, it was open to her to name those officials as defendants in the statement of claim as an extension of the claim in the notice of action.<\/p>\n [15]\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Rules 14.03(1) and (2) and 14.03(5) must be interpreted in the context of the rules as a whole, which include rule 5.04(2).<\/p>\n [16]\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Rules 14.03(1) and 14.06(1) read together provide that the parties to an action, which include the defendants, be named in the originating process, which in this case was the notice of action.\u00a0 Rule 5.04(2) provides the means by which parties may be added to an action: \u201c[T]he court may\u00a0by order<\/i><\/b>\u00a0add, delete or substitute a party . . .\u201d [emphasis added]. \u00a0However, there is no provision in rule 14.03 that allows parties to be added to a proceeding commenced by notice of action simply by including them in the statement of claim.\u00a0 In the face of the specific provision in rule 5.04(2) requiring a court order to add parties, the fact that rule 14.03(5) allows a plaintiff who has issued a notice of action to \u201calter or extend the claim\u201d when filing her statement of claim does not enable that plaintiff to add new defendants simply by including them in the statement of claim.<\/p>\n [17]\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Rule 14.03(2) enables a plaintiff to comply with a limitation period by commencing an action by notice of action \u201cwhere there is insufficient time to prepare a statement of claim\u201d.\u00a0 The notice of action is therefore intended to be a document that can be prepared and issued quickly before the limitation period expires.\u00a0 However, in order to defeat the operation of the limitation period, the plaintiff must still name all defendants within the limitation period, subject to the considerations discussed below.<\/p>\n [18]\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0If a plaintiff wishes to add defendants to an action commenced by notice of action, she must, as concluded above, do so by way of a motion under rule 5.04(2).\u00a0 The registrar was therefore correct in refusing to accept for filing the statement of claim naming five new defendants.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Can you object to a request for documents on the basis that they are dated prior to the limitation period? No. A thousand times no! The court in Nanton v. Julien <\/em><\/a>had no trouble dismissing this bizarre argument:<\/p>\n The defendants object to a number of requests for documents on the basis of the\u00a0Limitations Act<\/i>.\u00a0 Limitations apply to bar claims, not requests for documentary production.\u00a0 So long as the claim is properly pleaded and has not been dismissed by reason of a limitations defence, the parties are obliged to produce relevant documents, even if those documents date back to a time beyond the limitations period.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Does the limitation period for a claim arising from an auto accident commence on the date of the accident if the plaintiff can\u2019t reasonably know the identity of the auto’s owner at that time? Also no, as the court in Miano v. Campos<\/em>\u00a0<\/a> held (while sighing, I imagine):<\/p>\n [<\/a>30]\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Defendant\u2019s position that the limitation period for a claim for damages arising from an automobile accident commences to run on the date of the accident even if the plaintiff does not know and cannot reasonably discover the identity of the owner and operator of the automobile on the date of the accident is misguided. It ignores the plain language of\u00a0s. 5(1)<\/a>(a)(iii) and\u00a05(1)<\/a>(b) and renders those provisions meaningless.\u00a0 \u00a0Given these provisions, it is unnecessary to commence a claim against \u201cJane Doe\u201d in order to \u201cpreserve\u201d a limitation period, as the limitation period does not commence to run until the identity of the owner or operator, as the case may be, is known or ought to have been known.\u00a0 Such an approach adds nothing of value, clutters the record and, if Jane Doe was later identified, would then necessitate an unnecessary step in this proceeding to remove Jane Doe as a defendant and add the identified defendant.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is a category of limitations jurisprudence\u00a0that decides issues which shouldn’t need deciding. Three decisions recently expanded it. Having commenced a proceeding by notice of action within the limitation period, can a plaintiff add defendants to the proceeding outside the limitation period by naming them as defendant in the statement of claim? No, obviously, the … Continue reading Ontario: limitations issues that shouldn’t need deciding<\/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":[124,9,92,212],"class_list":["post-944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ontario","tag-adding-a-party","tag-discovery","tag-motor-vehical-accident","tag-the-most-desperate-of-arguments"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944","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=944"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":947,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions\/947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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