The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has recently ruled in Attree v Waye, 2022 ONSC 4195, that Plaintiffs are not required to disclose particulars of prior settlements.
The Plaintiff in this case was involved in a slip and fall in July 2012 in which he was allegedly overserved alcohol at a wedding and fell. The most significant injury as a result of the fall was a fracture to the Plaintiff’s right hip that required surgery. Subsequently, in September 2015, the Plaintiff was involved in a motor vehicle accident which resulted in injuries to his right hip along with psychological and emotional impairment.
The Plaintiff commenced an action related to each of the slip and fall and motor vehicle accident. In October 2019, Justice McKelvey ordered that the two actions be tried together or one immediately after the other. The slip and fall action settled in May 2021.
The defendant in the motor vehicle action brought an application seeking to have the particulars of the Plaintiff’s settlement in the slip and fall action provided as an exception to settlement privilege. It is important to note that the defendant had been given all pleadings and documents related to damages from the commercial host action, including all medical records, school records and the Ontario Health Insurance Plan summaries.
The Court was clear that the defendant has all documents needed to assess the damages of the Plaintiff as a result of the motor vehicle accident and determine the appropriate quantum as this will be assessed on the medical records provided. The Court held that the quantum of the settlement in the slip and fall action was not relevant to determining the damages in the motor vehicle action and remains protected by settlement privilege. The double recovery principle applies only to joint tortfeasors and not successive tortfeasors.
This case confirms that Plaintiffs are entitled to approach each claim without risk of having the negotiation in other claims being disclosed and possibly resulting in prejudice.
Kendra Barlow
Student-at-Law