Should People With Car Insurance be Recused from Jury Duty? Kappor v. Kuzmanovski

July 10, 2017, Kitchener, Ontario

Posted by: Robert Deutschmann, Personal Injury Lawyer

Should People With Car Insurance be Recused from Jury Duty?

In the recent case of Kapoor v. Kuzmanovski, Justice Daley faced the interesting question of whether it would ensure fairness at a trial to recuse those with car insurance from jury duty in car accident cases. Specifically, Preeti Kapoor asked the trial judge:

1.    To exclude potential jurors who drive, and pay car insurance premiums (or who have car insurance premiums paid for them), or

2.    To remove those potential jurors who pay car insurance due to an inherent conflict of interest, or

3.    To allow Ms. Kapoor’s lawyer to challenge those potential jurors with car insurance (paid by themselves or someone else), ask to allow him to request those jurors who show bias be removed from the jury pool, or

4.    If all the above requests are refused, to then remove the jury from the case and have the trial judge alone decide the case due to the conflict of interest.

The court, recognizing the broad ranging and significant impact such a ruling could have on the justice system, adjourned to allow the Crown, the Advocate’s Society, and other interested parties to give their opinions on the matter.

The Juries Act in Ontario does not allow a party in a civil action to challenge a juror for potential bias currently. It is a fact that this case could result in a much-needed change to the jury system, highlighting that the time has come to consider jury selection in Ontario for civil cases. A valid question is why do we continue to keep jurors in the dark in car accident cases about the deductibles on pain and suffering damages, involvement of insurance companies in defense of the action, thresholds on certain damage, the 30% reduction in value of pre-trial income loss claims. The system is not transparent, nor fair to the injured party in many cases.

There is a call to increase the transparency in the car insurance regime, accident benefits trials and tribunal hearings, in the relationship between the lobby groups like the IBC and government in establishing new regulations and benefit limits.
The Ontario Trial Association recently published a post stating that “Unless and until there is more transparency, the judge should allow Ms. Kapoor’s requests and exclude biased jurors who pay for auto insurance”.

The news is replete with insurance companies arguing that high settlements resulting from lawsuits are the major factor in driving up premiums. There is a valid concern that jurors who pay premiums to insurance companies may chose to award lower amounts to injured parties to keep their own premiums from increasing.

A valid solution would be to follow the American model of ‘jury voir dire” which would allow counsel to questions jurors to determine any bias that may exist. Such a system would give a level of transparency to the Ontario system which would go a long way to ensuring fair trials. All the relevant details of the current insurance settlement limits should be disclosed to the jury, including whether the defendant is insured for any loss incurred. This would allow juries to understand that in most cases the defendant is not paying the award from their own pocket, but rather that the insurance company is.

About Deutschmann Law

Deutschmann Law serves South-Western Ontario with offices in Kitchener-Waterloo, Cambridge, Woodstock, Brantford, Stratford and Ayr. The law practice of Robert Deutschmann focuses almost exclusively in personal injury and disability insurance matters. For more information, please visit www.deutschmannlaw.com or call us at 1-519-742-7774.

It is important that you review your accident benefit file with one of our experienced personal injury / car accident lawyers to ensure that you obtain access to all your benefits which include, but are limited to, things like physiotherapy, income replacement benefits, vocational retraining and home modifications.