The Plaintiff was injured in a motor vehicle accident. The matter proceeded to trial. Liability and damages were in dispute. Questions were presented to the Jury. Defence counsel took the position that the Jury should be asked to particularize the Defendant’s negligence, and to also particularize which of the Plaintiff’s injuries were caused by the crash.
Date Heard: June 14, 2018 | Full Decision [PDF]
The Court reviewed a number of authorities dealing with whether a Jury should be asked to particularize its findings. Some courts have held that in complex cases, with significant expert evidence on either the standard of care, or causation, the Jury’s understanding may need to be tested. The court stated the advantages of requiring the Jury to particularize as follows:
The advantages are the ability to “test” the jury’s understanding of judicial instructions (ter Neuzen, Sacks ,Lush), to ensure that the jury did not disregard the law in favour of an emotional verdict (Ontario Courtroom Procedure) or to concentrate the jurors’ minds
On the other hand, there are disadvantages to requiring particularization. The jurors may differ in their reasons for finding liability, particularization comes very close to revealing Jury deliberations, and the Jury may become distracted. The Court wrote:
The disadvantages of requesting particulars are that doing so fails to account for the possibility that the jurors may not agree on the reasons for their unanimous decision (Newell, Huang) and that it risks revealing the substance of the jury’s deliberations (Huang). To this, I would add the danger in attempting to precisely articulate the particulars of their findings, the jurors may become distracted from their main task of determining liability and damages.
The Court ultimately held that need for particularization should be dealt with on a case by case basis. In the case before the Court, there was nothing unique, or overly complicated about the case. Requiring the Jury to explain what injuries were linked to the crash would not aide in testing whether the Jury understood the Court’s instructions.
Read the full decision [PDF]