Plaintiff Stripped of Partial Costs For Trial Judgment Below Advance Payments
Reasons for judgement were published today by the BC Supreme Court, Vancouver Registry addressing a somewhat unique fact pattern of what costs consequences should be after trial where a Plaintiff was awarded damages below the amount of money they received prior to trial by way of advances paid by the Defendants.
In today’s case (Singh v. Chand) the Plaintiff sued for damages as a result of two collisions. The claim for the second collision was dismissed. The Defendants for the first crash admitted liability. Prior to trial they advanced the Plaintiff $250,000. They agreed that they would not seek repayment regardless of the outcome of the trial. At trial the Plaintiff’s damages were assessed below this amount with $137,288 being awarded.
The Court found that in these circumstances the Plaintiff should recover costs to the date of the advance payment and the Defendants entitled to their costs from that date onward. In reaching this decision Madam Justice Watchuk provided the following reasons: