Indivisible Injury Principle Applied Where Injuries Aggravated in Limitation Barred Event
Helpful reasons for judgement were published today by the BC Supreme Court, Vancouver Registry, showing the Plaintiff friendly scope of the Indivisible Injury principle.
In today’s case (Griffioen v. Arnold) the Plaintiff was involved in two vehicle collisions. The first in 2011. She sued the at fault motorist who admitted liability. She was involved in a second collision in 2014. She was a passenger in her husband’s vehicle. He was at fault for the second crash but she chose not to sue and the limitation period to do so expired. The second crash aggravated the injuries from the first.
The Defendant argued that the Plaintiff’s damages must be reduced to the extent that the second crash aggravated them. The Court disagreed noting the principle of indivisible injury allows the Plaintiff to fully recover damages from the first Defendant who is then burdened to seek indemnification from other contributing tortfeasors. In applying the indivisible injury principle in the Plaintiff’s favour Mr. Justice Bracken provided the following reasons:
[117] In this case, the plaintiff elected not to sue her husband, who was the person at fault in the second accident. She admits that he was at fault and that her right to bring an action is now statute-barred by the Limitation Act, SBC 2012, c. 13.
[118] In Bradley v. Groves, 2010 BCCA 361 at paras. 32 – 34, the court said:
[32] There can be no question that Athey [Athey v. Leonati, [1996] 3 S.C.R. 458] requires joint and several liability for indivisible injuries. Once a trial judge has concluded as a fact that an injury is indivisible, then the tortfeasors are jointly liable to the plaintiff. They can still seek apportionment (contribution and indemnity) from each other, but absent contributory negligence, the plaintiff can claim the entire amount from any of them.
[33] The approach to apportionment in Long v. Thiessen [(1968), 65 W.W.R. 577 (C.A.)] is therefore no longer applicable to indivisible injuries. The reason is that Long v. Thiessen pre-supposes divisibility; Long requires courts to take a single injury and divide it up into constituent causes or points in time, and assess damages twice; once on the day before the second tort, and once at trial. Each defendant is responsible only for their share of the injury and the plaintiff can recover only the appropriate portion from each tortfeasor.
[34] That approach is logically incompatible with the concept of an indivisible injury. If an injury cannot be divided into distinct parts, then joint liability to the plaintiff cannot be apportioned either. It is clear that tortfeasors causing or contributing to a single, indivisible injury are jointly liable to the plaintiff. This in no way restricts the tortfeasors’ right to apportionment as between themselves under the Negligence Act, but it is a matter of indifference to the plaintiff, who may claim the entire amount from any defendant.
[119] In Pinch v. Hofstee, 2015 BCSC 1888, the plaintiff claimed compensation arising from a motor vehicle accident. He was subsequently injured in a second accident and the injuries from the two accidents were found to be indivisible. The court considered Bradley v. Groves, but found that any claim for the second accident was statute-barred by section 10(1) of the Workers Compensation Act. Burnyeat J. held that the plaintiff could not recover full damages from the defendant in the first accident.
[120] At para.60, Burnyeat J. stated:
[60] I conclude that the Legislature has made it clear that the principles set out in Bradley, supra, do not apply where there is a statutory bar to recovery of what may be found to be indivisible damages. Section 10(1) of the Act is but one example of the inability to recover indivisible damages arising out of a separate breach of duty of care. A further example might be illustrated by a situation whereby proceedings relating to a first tortious act were not commenced within the limitation period and a second tortious act occurred. In those circumstances, I cannot conclude that damages would be available where an action was not commenced relating to the first act, a subsequent act caused injuries which were found to be indivisible from the first act, and a claim was advanced against the second tortfeasor for damages for the injuries caused both by the first and the second tortious acts. Just as a claim for damages for a second tortious act could not “give life to” recovery of damages for a first act where a limitation period had expired so also s. 10(1) of the Act has taken away “any right and rights of action” available to Mr. Pinch and any recoverable “damages, contributions or indemnity” that might have been available to Mr. Pinch as a result of MVA #2.
[121] In Sandhu v. Vuong, 2016 BCSC 1490, Master Baker followed Pinch v. Hofstee, and held that the defendant in one action could not commence a third party proceeding against a person liable for a second accident that happened in Manitoba because the accident there was statute-barred by a “no-fault” automobile insurance regime.
[122] I do not agree that the situation here is the same as where an action is statute-barred as in both Pinch and Sandhu. There was no right of action in British Columbia against the person liable for the second accident. In Pinch, the Workers Compensation Act prevented an action and in Sandhu, the court held that as there was no right of action in Manitoba, there could not be a right in British Columbia.
[123] In both Pinch and Sandhu, the plaintiffs were not simply beyond the time limit for commencing an action, but would be barred by statute from commencing an action even if they had done so within the statutory time limits.
[124] It seems to me that it was open to the defendants in this case to commence a third-party action provided it was commenced within the time limit that started when the defendants became aware of their right to commence an action against the plaintiff’s husband. That is, the time limits for the defendants may not be the same for a third party action as for an action by the plaintiff.
[125] The plaintiff obviously knew of her right to commence an action from the time of the accident. The defendants were aware of their right to commence an action from the time they discovered they might be liable for some damages from the second accident. I therefore find that Pinch and Sandhu are distinguishable from the facts of this case and in the circumstances, I am not prepared to apportion liability to the plaintiff’s husband in reliance on the principle of indivisibility and will apply the principle in Bradley.