Most of a B.C. man’s $6 million judgment for a crash that resulted in his paralysis will be further delayed after a court allowed an appeal by the driver, a friend he had been drinking with the day of the accident. Read More
Both men in truck that rolled into ditch outside Fort St. John insisted the other was driving that night but judge found one mostly responsible for crash that left his friend paraplegic.
Both men in truck that rolled into ditch outside Fort St. John insisted the other was driving that night but judge found one mostly responsible for crash that left his friend paraplegic.
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Most of a B.C. man’s $6 million judgment for a crash that resulted in his paralysis will be further delayed after a court allowed an appeal by the driver, a friend he had been drinking with the day of the accident.
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The amount, one of B.C.’s highest personal injury trial awards, was won by Cody Somers, a then 29-year-old Fort St. John labourer, after he was thrown from a truck after it rolled over into a ditch on Old Fort Loop Road outside town on March 22, 2019.
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His friend, Richard MacLellan, was able to get himself out of the Ford F250 and was unscathed, according to a judgment from B.C. Supreme Court in August 2023.
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Somers sued MacLellan for damages for his injuries, including lost income, cost of future care and almost $3 million for pain and suffering, it said.
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There was no doubt the driver was negligent and that negligence caused the accident, but the judge had to determine who was driving because each said the other was. “At least one of the parties is flatly lying,” ruled Supreme Court Justice Sheila Tucker.
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She said both men were motivated to lie, Somers to get damages and MacLellan because he totalled his mother’s truck and would likely have been worried that another charge would harm a plea deal he was in the middle of negotiating for a 2018 accident he had caused.
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If Tucker wasn’t able to determine who was behind the wheel, she said Somers’ claim for judgment would have been dismissed.
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She based her ruling mostly on information from two expert witnesses testifying for Somers who concluded MacLellan was driving, and one for MacLellan, who told court that Somers had been behind the wheel. All three were biochemical or forensic engineers.
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MacLellan and his mother, Marilyn MacLellan, who as the truck’s owner was also sued, were found to be liable for the crash and Somers was found 25 per cent negligent for not wearing a seatbelt, Tucker ruled.
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Within a month, on Sept. 19, 2023, the MacLellans filed an appeal, but their lawyer withdrew from the case the next day, citing a conflict of interest, according to the Court of Appeal judgment on an application by the MacLellans for an extension of time to file documents.
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The appeal had been placed on the inactive list in September 2024 because more than a year had passed since the appeal was filed, wrote Justice Elizabeth Bennett of the Appeal Court.
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Somers opposed granting the extension because the erosion of evidence caused by the delay would prejudice him if a new trial were ordered, according to Bennett’s judgment.
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But she allowed the application and removed the appeal from the inactive list because the delay was not the fault of the MacLellans as they had appealed in time, had replaced the original lawyer, and weren’t responsible for or even aware that filing deadlines had been missed.