Thursday, November 10th, 2022 — An insurer involved in settlement negotiations can’t ask a claimant for leniency on time limits, but then demand the claimant adhere to strict limitation periods for serving a statement of claim, an Alberta court has ruled.
The court thus granted a claimant an extension to formally serve the insurer with a statement of claim, even though the two-year limit for filing a claim had expired.
‘An agreement between an adjuster and counsel [for the claimant] that a statement of defence will not be required without notice gives rise to a reasonable belief that other time limits, including the time for service of a statement of claim, will not be strictly enforced until one party or the other advises that the rules of the game will revert to being strictly applied,’ the Court of the King’s Bench in Alberta wrote in a decision released Monday.
‘It is inequitable to permit an insurer to obtain an indulgence with respect to a time limit from [the claimant’s] counsel and, at the same time, hold the [claimant] to the strict time limits provided by the rules of court.’
