The Court of Appeal released two decisions that hopefully put to bed the debate about the effect of legislative changes made in 2015. The court also addressed double recovery by plaintiffs, addressing the deductibility of SABS settlements and other collateral benefits from damage awards.
In Cobb v Long Estate and El-Khodr v. Lackie the court held:
- That the amendment to the Insurance Act regarding the prejudgement interest rate applicable for non-pecuniary losses applies retrospectively to all actions tried after the amendment came into effect.
- That the amendment to the Insurance Act indexing the deductible applies retrospectively to all actions tried after the amendment came into effect.
- Double recovery by plaintiffs is to be avoided potentially weakening the strict “apples to apples, oranges to oranges” approach to deductibility of collateral benefits.
- All amounts for IRB, including settlement amounts allocated to IRB, that the plaintiff received before trial, are deductible from the total damages for past and future loss of income arising from the same accident.
See Cobb v. Long Estate, 2017 ONCA 717 and El-Khodr v. Lackie, 2017 ONCA 716.
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