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Justice delayed, is Justice Denied.

Slow Courts, or a slow march towards a Plaintiff’s day in Court is the equivalent to a Plaintiff not receiving any justice at all.

Why do personal injury cases take a back seat to other cases in Ontario Courts?

It’s not like the Defendant at fault driver will be punished for having caused a car accident in civil court? The Defendant at fault driver is not going to jail for having caused a car accident. The Judge won’t order “eye for an eye” justice like you might have seen in ancient times; not that we are advocating for a return to such justice. Nor will the Judge order that the at fault Defendant driver perform tasks for the injured Plaintiff to make him/her  whole (like the Defendant serve as the Plaintiff’s butler for a period of time). These sort of remedies are unheard of in Canadian Courts.

Instead, the only thing which a Judge can award in a personal injury case is money. That’s it. The money is intended to make the Plaintiff whole for the Plaintiff’s damages, and to compensate the Plaintiff for their losses.

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Kawhi Leonard: Where do I begin?

I suppose with a heartfelt “Thank You” from Raptor Fans coast to coast. But, this thank you is just for your work in 2018/2019 with the Raptors. That’s it.

Thank you for reluctantly coming to Toronto and doing your job. When you were traded here from San Antonio in 2018, you didn’t complain (or at least publicly complain).

We knew Toronto wasn’t your first choice, or your second choice, or your tenth choice for that matter.

But, as a true professional, you put your head down, got to work, and performed at the highest level. Your on court professionalism was exceptional. This is remarkable, because it could have gone pear shaped rather quickly. But, you didn’t let it get to that. Instead, you led the greatest single Toronto Raptor season of all time cumulating with an NBA Championship, a Finals MVP, a First Team All NBA Selection; and you were by the time the season ended the consensus best basketball player on then planet…and you were a Raptor!!!  I can’t think of another Toronto pro sports athlete who had a high as great as the one you ended on in 2019.

And then you left for Los Angeles.

While it was sad to see you go, we accepted it. You owed Toronto nothing. You had delivered for Toronto as a true professional and now it was time for you to go. You had a choice as a free agent to work and live where you wanted, and you chose to be close to home and your family in California. You earned that right. No hard feelings.

But fast forward to 2026. You’ve been a Los Angeles Clipper for 7 years with nothing to show for it. Just 3 Playoff Series wins in 7 years, having never advanced beyond round 2. You’ve played in 59.7% of regular season Clipper games. That means that fans don’t get to see you play 40% of the time (which is a lot when you think about it). You’ve missed 15 playoff games in 7 years. Yikes!

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On July 1st, 2026, the Ontario Government allowed all car insurers to change what benefits were benefits came standard under an ordinary car insurance policy. These changes did not benefit your average consumer. These changes benefited car insurers because they could ask for the same amount of money in premiums, yet be on the hook to pay out far less in benefits under that same policy.

Here are some of the benefits which used to exist under a standard car insurance policy before July 1st 2026, but were eliminated thereafter:

$185/week Non Earner Benefit x 104 weeks = $19,240 eliminated under standard policy

$400/week Income Replacement Benefit x 104 weeks = $41,600 eliminated under standard police

$3,000/month x 24 months = $72,000 eliminated under standard policy

Cost of Funeral = $6,000 Max Benefit eliminated under standard policy

Death Coverage for Surviving Spouse = $25,000 eliminated under standard policy

Death Coverage for Dependant Children = $10,000 per child eliminated under standard policy

These are some serious savings for Ontario Car Insurance Companies! These benefits were standard under a run of the mill car insurance policy. These benefits were available to people who didn’t have their own car insurance, but who were involved in car accidents themselves. Think of people like:

  • Pedestrians who were hit by a car through no fault of their own
  • Seat Belted Passengers who were involved in a car accident through no fault of their own
  • Cyclists who were hit by a car through no fault of their own

Before July 1st, 2026, all of the benefits detailed above were available to these people, whether or not they had car insurance, or not, under a standard auto policy.

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Everyone has a person in their lives who thinks that they know it all. I’ve met some very smart people in my life. But I’ve never met someone who knows everything, about everything. In fact, the smartest, most brilliant people I’ve met know exactly when they’re outside of their depth of understanding or knowledge. When that happens, they defer to the experts and surround themselves with people who are more knowledgeable than they are.

The concept of seeking out an expert for comment isn’t novel. It’s a practice that’s used in all sorts of fields.

We see developers engage in experts to help them build large construction projects. The developer will retain an architect, a structural engineer, a traffic engineer, an environmental engineer, an arborist, a planner, a lawyer and the list goes on, all to ensure that the development gets built to standard.

A professional sports team will hire a nutritionist, a psychologist, a strength and conditioning coach, specialist physicians, all to make sure that their team performs as best it can.

In a personal injury case, your lawyer will engage with, and retain experts to make sure that your case is optimized for success and is presented in the best way possible before a Judge and Jury should the matter proceed to trial.

Your personal injury lawyer alone sometimes isn’t enough to “win” a personal injury case. It takes an entire team to get the job done. Here are a few “experts” who your lawyer might engage with or retain in order to maximize the success of your case:

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Some of the most interesting cases we see are sports injury cases. But, these are also some of the most difficult cases which Goldfinger Injury Lawyers sees as well.

Every little factual detail in these cases matters. Splitting hairs is what these cases are all about.

Often, in these sport cases, the nature of the injuries takes a back seat to liability (who is at fault and how the accident happened). The circumstances leading up to the accident, and the accident itself are very important. It’s not uncommon for the parties to agree on damages; but to disagree on almost every point dealing with liability.

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This edition of the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog addresses the viability of a civil tort claim against the OPP and/or the Crown arising from a poorly done police investigation into a fatal car crash.

The Tort of Public Misfeasance

What the Tort Requires

The leading case is the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Odhavji Estate v. Woodhouse (2003). That case arose after police officers fatally shot a young man during an attempted arrest. The shooting triggered an investigation by the Special Investigations Unit, and the officers involved were required by statute to cooperate by, among other things, remaining separated, making themselves available for interviews, and producing their notes. The victim’s family alleged that the officers deliberately failed to comply with those obligations and that senior police officials knowingly failed to ensure they did.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that those allegations, if proven, were capable of establishing the tort of misfeasance in public office. The Court explained that public misfeasance is a narrow tort intended to protect citizens from the deliberate misuse of governmental authority. It is not enough to show that a public official made a mistake, exercised poor judgment, or carried out public duties incompetently.

The Court identified two essential elements of the tort.

  • First, the public official must deliberately engage in unlawful conduct while exercising public powers or performing public duties. the Court confirmed that “unlawful conduct” can include the deliberate failure to perform a mandatory statutory duty.
  • Second, the plaintiff must establish the required mental element. The public official must know that the conduct is unlawful and know that it is likely to harm the plaintiff, or be recklessly indifferent to both the unlawfulness of the conduct and the likelihood of harm.

That distinction is important. Mere negligence, carelessness, poor judgment, or a misunderstanding in the course of police conduct is not enough.

How Courts Have Applied Odhavji

Subsequent decisions demonstrate that courts have applied Odhavji (2003) cautiously. The mental element remains the main difficulty, and courts are reluctant to let allegations of negligence be reframed as bad faith without concrete supporting evidence.

Manoharan v. Taylor (2025) illustrates the kind of allegations that may satisfy that requirement. The plaintiffs alleged that an OPP officer investigating their eligibility for cannabis retail licences approached the investigation with the predetermined intention of ensuring that the licences would be refused. Rather than conducting an independent investigation, the officer allegedly repeated serious organized-crime allegations supplied by another officer without attempting to verify them, despite the absence of corroborating evidence. Those allegations later unravelled before the Licence Appeal Tribunal, which found in the plaintiffs’ favour.

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Police investigations, prosecutorial decisions, and regulatory functions are typically carried out in the public interest, even though they may significantly affect individual interests.

Courts are generally reluctant to find that those public functions meet the criteria of private law duties owed to individuals affected by those functions

For example, a victim of crime usually can’t sue a Crown prosecutor in negligence because a decision not to prosecute weakened a later civil action.

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One of my jobs as a personal injury lawyer is to explain to our clients how the law works, and how the law applies to their case.

Most people have ideas about how the law should work. But, those ideas aren’t based on law, fact, or anything else. Rather their ideas about how the law works are based on feelings, or something they’ve heard in passing from a friend, colleague, or family member (usually not a lawyer).  People want to believe what they want to believe. They have preconceived notions about how car accident law, and Ontario’s laws surrounding compensation should work. This is based on what they perceive to be “fair” and how they perceive the system to operate without having done any research at all.

The biggest misconception about car accident law in Ontario is that it’s fair.

The cold, hard, truth is that the laws surrounding car accident law, and the way which Courts compensate accident victims in Ontario is NOT FAIR AT ALL.

I’ve never heard anyone say that laws were meant to be fair, in particular, man made laws.

In fact the laws were drafted in such a way as to minimize the exposure of car insurers as much as possible so that they can maximize their profits. In turn, those savings which the insurers presumably were making on lower exposure were supposed to be passed along to the consumer in the form of lower auto insurance premiums. This pipedream never happened. What we see instead is that everyday Ontario drivers are paying more in car insurance premiums; and getting less in terms of coverage and benefits. This is shrinkflation, only it’s harder to see and to understand because insurance is not a physical product that we can taste, see or touch. Nor is it a product which we purchase everyday at a store, or online. Insurance is a product which people use everyday in the background, but hope to never have to call upon in the event of an unfortunate accident. It’s for those reasons that people remain unfamiliar with how it works. I tell people all the time that buying insurance, and making a claim isn’t like buying a pair of shoes or a litre of milk at a store. It’s much more complicated than that.

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When is a car accident, a car accident?

This seems like a silly question, which shouldn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

Why is it so important if it’s a car accident, or not?

There is potentially $1,000,000+ at stake if it’s deemed to be a car accident, or not. And here’s why.

In Ontario, we have a complex system of no fault accident benefits, which are only available if the accident is deemed a car accident (or an accident arising from the use or operation of a motor vehicle).

If it’s not deemed a car accident, then the injured accident victim will NOT have access to accident benefits. This means that they will not be eligible for an income replacement benefit ($400/week), attendant care benefit ($3,000/month),  or paid rehab benefits through a car insurer. Accident benefits provide interim support to injured accident victims. If the injuries ar very serious, they might be deemed catastrophic, which will allow the injured accident victim to access over $1,000,000 in accident benefits.

So, this seemingly mundane question of whether or not this was a car accident or not is a potential “million dollar question“. As such, you can see why lawyers put so much effort into answering these questions. There’s a lot at stake for the Applicant (injured accident victim), and the Respondent (the insurer).

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I guess I’m what you would call an industry insider when it comes to car accident cases.

I’m an industry insider because I have a lot of experience seeing and litigating personal injury cases arising from motor vehicle accidents (cars, SUVs, bikes, motorcycles, pedestrian collision knockdown cases etc.).

How the law works when it comes to personal injury cases is normal for a lawyer like me. But not so normal for a person who doesn’t know how the law works, or who has no experience with car accident or personal injury cases.

One of the things I share with my clients, and with prospective clients is that the law surrounding personal injury cases involving a motor vehicle is very odd; and very unfair. Coming to terms with these strange and one sided laws is difficult for most people. But, there is little a person can do to change the laws, other than lobby for government for change.

The reaction I get from people when I tell them how the law works is almost always the same. Paraphrased common reactions to these laws include:

  • That’s really messed up
  • Why did they they do that?
  • WTF?!?!
  • How can they get away with that?
  • This seems really unfair
  • This is criminal
  • Why am I getting screwed (again)
  • But I didn’t do anything wrong, so why am I being punished?
  • Will this effect my car insurance premiums?

What sort of circumstances prompt these types of reactions for car accident cases in Ontario?

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