The purpose of this entry of the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog is to focus on a rather long personal injury case called Davies v. The Corporation of the Municipality of Clarington.
This is the case about a Via Trail derailment on what should have been a routine trip from Toronto to Montreal on November 23, 1999.
100+ passengers claimed injuries by way of class action.
Liability was sorted out by way of class action by way of trial in 2007.
But what wasn’t sorted out was the quantification of damages for one injured passenger; Christopher Zuber. Injuries, causation and the quantification of damages was the focus of this trial.
Mr. Zuber’s personal injury case in its entirety lasted around 17 years.
The trial took around 26 weeks (approximately 107 days to complete). It is believed this was the longest single personal injury jury trial in Ontario Court history (but we have no real concrete stats on it).
Here are some comments from the Honourable Justice Edwards about this case which speak for themselves on what it takes to suceed in a personal injury case, along with the state of modern personal injury litigation in Ontario. These comments are worth noting for any personal injury lawyer, or for any member of the general public with an active personal injury case on the go in Ontario. The comments of the Honourable Justice Edwards are also important to understanding how personal injury cases work, and are assessed in Ontario. Keep in mind, these are direct quotes from the Judge in this decision.
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