Court Critical of ICBC Practices Following Hit and Run Collisions
Reasons for judgement were released today by the BC Supreme Court, Kamloops Registry, with critical comments aimed at ICBC for their practices in dealing with hit and run claims.
In today’s case (Fitger v. John Doe) the Plaintiff was injured by the actions of an unidentified motorist. The Plaintiff contacted ICBC shortly after the collision and “essentially took the actions suggested by his ICBC claim adjuster“. In the lawsuit for damages ICBC then raised the standard s. 24 defence arguing the Plaintiff did not take all reasonable steps to identify the at fault motorist. The Plaintiff argued the defense should be struck as he relied on ICBC’s guidance. The court, while critical of ICBC’s practices, noted their actions did not go so far as to strip them of the protections of the statutory defense. In addressing ICBC’s practices Mr. Justice Meiklem commented as follows:
[10] Ignorance of the provisions of s. 24(5) is not an uncommon phenomenon. I do not know whether ICBC has a policy of deliberately not informing claimants such as Mr. Fitger of their s. 24(5) obligations, but there certainly does appear to be a practice of not advising claimants of their obligations, despite comments from the court about the unfairness that is apparent when lay people place reliance on claims being processed as if valid, and are then belatedly faced with the invocation of s. 24(5) if settlement is not reached: Springer v. Kee, 2012 BCSC 1210 at paras. 82-93 and Li v. John Doe 1, 2015 BCSC 1010 at paras. 105-116…
[16] While the doctrine of estoppel can, as a general proposition, be applied in respect of interfering with statutory rights, s. 24(5) of the Act is as much about creating an obligation on the courts to enforce an obligation on a class of claimants in the cause of preventing fraudulent claims as it is about providing a defence to ICBC.
[17] In my view, ICBC’s failure to inform the plaintiff of his s. 24(5) obligation was ill-advised from a public interest perspective. To continue to process his claim without comment on his accident-day inaction and then surprise him by pleading and pursuing a s. 24(5) defence was unfair from the plaintiff’s perspective. These facts do not, in the circumstances of this case, amount to conduct warranting the application of the doctrine of estoppel to the limited remaining issue in regard to s. 24(5).