Following the settlement of his personal injury case and a Consent Judgment, the Plaintiff was forced to bring an action pursuant to section 258(1) of the Insurance Act to compel one of two insurers, Gore Mutual Insurance Company or Allstate Insurance Company of Canada, to pay the Judgment from the proceeds of its insurance policy.
By way of background, the Plaintiff sustained serious injuries when the vehicle in which he was a passenger crashed. The driver and owner of the vehicle (“the Defendants”) were insured by Gore. Gore took the position that the Defendants had failed to co-operate in their Defence and had, therefore, breached a term of their policy. If true, Gore would have been permitted to reduce its coverage from the $2 million policy limits to the statutory minimum in Ontario of $200,000 (which amount would not have been enough to satisfy the Plaintiff’s claims for damages). Since the Plaintiff had his own policy with Allstate with limits of $1 million, he added Allstate as a Defendant for underinsurance coverage. The parties ultimately settled the case in terms of the damages but the two insurers continued to fight over which insurer had to pay the damages.
A separate action was brought to have a Judge decide whether Gore’s off-coverage position was meritorious. The Judge found that the owner of the vehicle had not breached her policy with Gore, such that Gore had to respond to the Plaintiff’s claims up to its full policy limits of $2 million and, therefore, pay the monies owed under the Judgment.
Ruddell v. Gore, 2018 ONSC 3932 (2018-06-22) – Endorsement
