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Like all the provinces in Canada, Ontario has a statute of limitations, regarding when an accident victim has the right to file a personal injury claim. The stipulations linked to that statute seek to provide the residents of Ontario with a fair legal system.
What is the statute of limitations in Ontario?
The victim of an accident has 2 years in which to file a personal injury claim. That time period assumes that the victim was aware of the injury at the time of the accident. The Province also has an ultimate limitation period of 15 years.
If a victim holds a municipality liable for a given injury, the municipality must be sent a notice of the victim’s intentions within 10 days of the accident. The same rule applies, if a victim feels that the provincial government should be held liable for a given injury.
Times when the legal system will make an exception
An exception is made if the victim is a minor. The limitation period gets extended to the termination of 2 years, following the time when the minor reaches the age of 18.
An exception is made if the victim has been the target of a sexual assault. There is no strict limit on the amount of time in which the victim can feel free to file a personal injury claim. That exception reflects the hesitation that most victims express, regarding the act of coming forward with a charge against the person that carried-out the assault.
What is the purpose of the statute of limitations?
That demonstrates an effort by the legal system to be fair to both victims and defendants. The legal system seeks to deal fairly with the presentation of evidence. It becomes next to impossible to collect all the needed evidence if a large amount of time has passed since the accident that caused a given injury took place.
For instance, it could be that a broken traffic light explained why one driver entered a given intersection and collided with another vehicle. Yet if the inured driver in the second vehicle delayed with filing a personal injury claim, there might be no record of that broken traffic light. Personal Injury Lawyer in Brantford knows that then the defendant would have no ability to present the necessary evidence.
Alternately, it could be that a defect in a car’s brake caused the defective vehicle to enter an intersection when the light was red. Again, the victim would need to file a personal injury claim. If that was done well after the passing of 2 years, a car-maker might have no record of the defective brake. It could be that there were only a few of the manufacturer’s vehicles that had that same defect.