Jun 25, 2013 in News General

General: Is It Too Late To Sue?

An objective of the new Ontario Limitations Act, 2002, S.O. 2002, c.24, was to try and clarify the deadline for raising a lawsuit. The limitation period, known as the time between when the claim "arises" and the last day that a lawsuit can be commenced to advance that claim, was a bit of a gray area. Different types of claims can have different limitation periods; also taken into consideration are the given sets of facts and circumstances. It's evident why limitation periods varied across the spectrum. The start date of a limitation period is not necessarily when a Defendant did something to cause injury to the Plaintiff. There are cases where the Plaintiff is unaware of the injury until months, or even years later. This is where the "discoverability rule" comes into play to help determine the start date of the limitation period. The discoverability rules asks asks the question of when the plaintiff knew or when he should have known that he had a claim. Because of the Limitations Act, 2002 we now know that there is a 15 year ultimate limitation period, which extinguishes claims even if they have not yet been discovered. And for most claims there is a limitation period of two years, which is much shorter than the previous period of six years. However, there are still hundreds of special limitation periods for various other cases.For example, as per the Veterinarians Act (RSO 1990), there is a one year period of time in which you can bring forth a claim against a person who willfully procures a veterinarian license through fraudulent representation.