On July 21, 2020, the province of Ontario gave Royal Assent to Bill 195, Re-opening Ontario Act, 2020 (“Bill 195”). Bill 195 came into force on July 24, 2020, bringing an end to the declared State of Emergency in Ontario.
On August 20, 2020, the Ministry of the Attorney General has announced that limitation and procedural time periods that were suspended starting Monday, March 16, 2020 will resume running on Monday, September 14, 2020.
Initially, an Emergency Order dated March 20, 2020 was issued by the Ontario government suspending most provincial limitation periods retroactively to March 16, 2020 due to the COVID-19 emergency. This Emergency Order will be revoked on September 14, 2020.
The Ontario government had already lifted the suspension for some types of matters, including Construction Act matters, Planning Act matters, and support arrears enforcement. All remaining matters will now resume also.
Limitation periods will start to run again on September 14, with the same time to meet deadlines as there had been on March 16, 2020.
In Ontario, the basic limitation period is two years. This means that a person must commence an action within two years of when he or she first knew that a claim could be made. Normally, this would be two years after the claimant suffered the injury or the damage that was the subject of the claim.
It is important to note that if you have suffered from a slip and fall on what could be City of Toronto property, you have 10 days to notify the City. Pursuant to S. 33 of the Public Transportation and Highway Improvement Act, if you get into a collision wherein you are seeking to sue the Ministry of Transportation, they too must be notified within 10 days of your collision.
With the suspension of the limitation period, it is important to calculate what the new two-year limitation is. For example, if your date of loss or the date of your injury was May 15, 2018 then your initial two-year limitation was May 15, 2020. However, given that the limitation was suspended as of March 16, 2020, your new two year limitation deadline is November 15, 2020.
From everyone at JEWELL RADIMISIS JORGE LLP,we hope you and your family are all staying safe.