A Supreme Court Master refused to force this injury claimant to submit to an ICBC medical examination on two separate occasions and the Master awarded her costs. The judge made a substantial award of damages in this car accident injury case and awarded the claimant to costs at Scale B but denied her costs of defending these two applications. The claimant appealed the denial of costs (Kondor v. Shea,2016 BCCA 15).
The appeal was allowed as the costs of the two applications were effectively awarded to the claimant by the master who heard them. It was not open to the judge to deny the plaintiff those costs.
The Court of Appeal has made it clear that Supreme Court Judges have no power to change these types of cost awards made by Masters:
[10]… it was not open to the judge to deprive the plaintiff of the costs she had been awarded by the master upon her action succeeding.
[11] The judge was not hearing an appeal of the master’s orders that would have permitted him to consider whether the master had in some way erred in making one or both of his orders. Further, the master did not refer the costs of the applications to the judge as may be appropriate in some circumstances. There was then no place for the judge’s intervention.
Posted by Personal Injury Lawyer Mr. Renn A. Holness, B.A. LL.B.