The case summary below, involves a car accident in Ontario. It’s not out of the ordinary. This is how many car accident cases across the province play out. The defendant insurer often insists that these cases proceed with a jury, instead of by way of Judge alone.
I think the most unfortunate part of this decision is the toll these jury cases take on Ontario’s already over burdened judicial system. It appears that the Judge hearing this case felt the same way too, given that she made a point to comment specifically on the impact which jury trials have on our legal system:
“The strategy of offering plaintiffs nothing and forcing the matter to a jury trial is highly wasteful of court and public resources. This matter occupied a full three weeks of court time. It also drew on the time of eight jury members (six jurors and two alternate jurors) who could not work during their service. The cost to the public is clearly not something that factored into the Defendant’s calculations when deciding how to conduct this litigation. I find that this was unreasonable.
This is a strong reason as to why civil jury trials ought to be eliminated. There is no doubt that they take time away and resources away from civil productivity in order to litigate private disputes which have no significant or meaningful bearing on the public good. There is no compelling reason as to why this private dispute could not be tried by way of Judge alone. This would save money, time, desperately needed Court resources, and would likely foster settlement knowing that judges see right through the smoke and mirrors presented by many litigants in these sort of cases. Not to mention that they are also familiar with the deductible (the secret credit to insurers of $46,053.20 which lawyers cannot mention at trial). Jury trials in civil actions, particularly car accident cases are a selfish use of public resources for a non public dispute.