Welcome to Cases That Should Have Gone to the Supreme Court of Canada, But Didn’t! This week, we discuss whether people should be responsible for the actions, or inactions, of their lawyers.
Acumen Law Corporation lawyer Kyla Lee gives her take on a made-in-Canada court case each week, and discusses why these cases should have been heard by Canada’s highest court: the Supreme Court of Canada.
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Gestion Patron had sued the Royal Bank of Canada. The Royal Bank and Mr. Patron both had lawyers. The lawyers in this case failed to act appropriately by failing to file certain documents by a timeline. This resulted in the case being un-winnable.
The question is to what extent are individuals liable for the way their lawyers act. While lawyers have a duty to act and can be sued for failing to do so, suing and getting a financial judgement isn’t the same as what you had lost had the initial case been properly represented.
If you put your trust in a lawyer you should expect that your lawyer should do their job. But there are unfortunately cases like this, where lawyers don’t do what they’re supposed to do in the timelines they’re supposed to do it. Applicants that come to court, taking the correct steps, shouldn’t be prejudiced by their lawyers’ failure to act.
The Supreme Court of Canada could have clarified whether or not individuals should be left in this void, for people who were prejudiced by their lawyers’ conduct, these people do not have a remedy. they’ll never receive the satisfaction of having their cases properly heard in the first place.
It is a sad time in the world and we all need to be aware as is shown here, people are people no matter what designation they have, lawyers, doctors and every human involvement is to be scrutinized.