Welcome to Cases That Should Have Gone to the Supreme Court of Canada, But Didn’t! This week, lawyer Kyla Lee discusses the definition of an accident when it comes to auto insurance claims.
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.
Imagine this… You order coffee at a drive thru, and as you’re transferring the cup from your window to your car’s cupholder, it spills all over you. Technically this was an “accident” that took place in your vehicle… So is this something that you can claim with your car insurance company?
Erin Dittmann was pulling out of a McDonalds drive thru when she spilt coffee on herself because she didn’t properly transfer the cup into her vehicle’s cup holder. She suffered serious injuries as a result of the spill and rather than suing McDonalds, she sought a claim through her automobile insurance arguing that she had been in a car accident as a result of this spill. The question the court had to answer was whether or not this was an accident for the purposes of her insurance coverage, and ultimately they dismissed her claim.
This case was important enough to go to the Supreme Court of Canada because it deals with issues of statutory interpretation and the definition of “accident” in a no-fault insurance jurisdiction. Insurance law is developing into this system of determining not how much someone’s injuries are worth or not whether they are injured, but more about whether there was an accident at all.
The Supreme Court of Canada had the opportunity to define here whether there was an accident and to create a guideline for use across the country in determining what constitutes an accident in no-fault insurance, and in what circumstances a person is entitled to benefits. What the Supreme Court of Canada could have done is stop this type of lawsuit from happening again.
Watch the video for more.
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