Coherence and the Committed Civilian: Justice Lebel's Contributions to Canadian Accident Law

Supreme Court Law Review (2d) 94 (2015)

30 Pages Posted: 2 Apr 2016

See all articles by Erik S. Knutsen

Erik S. Knutsen

Queen's University Faculty of Law

Date Written: October 7, 2015

Abstract

Canadian accident law exists in a symbiotic dynamic, as an amalgam of tort law, insurance law and procedural law. Pull one strand in tort and it affects, and is affected by other strands of insurance law and procedural law. Within this dynamic, overarching compensatory goals compete with goals of certainty, fairness, commercial efficiency and justice. The result is an unavoidable blurring of legal and doctrinal categories of law. This is allowed to happen, in part, because Canadian accident law is a creature of the common law. This is probably also allowed to happen because some aspects of Canadian accident law share, at heart, a number of concerns often thought reserved only for public law matters: concerns about public availability of compensation for injuries.

This article aims to explore Justice LeBel’s particular approach to Canadian accident law through the lens of three of his tort and insurance judgments: Jesuit Fathers v. Guardian Insurance, Goulet v. Transamerica Life Insurance, and Whiten v. Pilot Insurance Co. In Jesuit Fathers, Justice LeBel’s categorical commitment prompts him to take an approach to insurance policy interpretation that, at first blush, appears to emulate that of textual formalism. Yet, in Goulet, his apparently formalist approach is tested to knit together the complex interplay between insurance law, criminal law and the plight of innocent insurance beneficiaries. In his dissent in Whiten, Justice LeBel cautions against using tort-based punitive damages in an insurance law context to usurp the compensatory goals of tort law and replace them with the punishment goals inherent in the criminal law. Such a move leads away from categorical purity in accident law and instead toward arbitrary legal and commercial uncertainty.

Keywords: insurance; tort; accident law; litigation; civil procedure

Suggested Citation

Knutsen, Erik S., Coherence and the Committed Civilian: Justice Lebel's Contributions to Canadian Accident Law (October 7, 2015). Supreme Court Law Review (2d) 94 (2015), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2755956

Erik S. Knutsen (Contact Author)

Queen's University Faculty of Law ( email )

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HOME PAGE: http://law.queensu.ca/facultyAndStaff/facultyProfiles/knutsen.html

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