Indivisibility is …

a meaningless label or an admission that the judge or jury was unable to decide what the evidence means so opted to blame all of the defendants so that the plaintiff could recoup from the defendant(s) with assets.

Divisible injuries are those capable of being separated out and having their damages assessed independently. Indivisible injuries are those that cannot be separated or have liability attributed to the constituent causes.

Bradley v. Groves, 2010 BCCA 361 at para. 20.

What follows is why the label is meaningless or an instance of sticking one’s hand into a wrongdoer’s pocket.

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Clements, class actions, general causation

The statistical possibility of factual causation less than a probability may be enough for general causation in products liability class actions, even if it means the compensated class includes persons whose injury was not, in fact, caused by the product.  See  Bartram v. GlaxoSmithKline Inc., 2012 BCSC 1804 at paras. 27-35.

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Hhhmmmm ….

2012SCC32

2012 SCC 32 is Clements v. Clements. The cases are listed chronologically below. The 19th, which isn’t included, is Clements. The search is limited to court cases. If you check for cases citing Clements through the citation tab on Clements, itself, you’ll get 20 hits. The 20th is a workers’ compensation tribunal decision.

I’ll try the search on one or the other of the commercial databases some other time.

Anybody notice a pattern?

Care to comment on the meaning of that pattern?

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Don’t Confuse Me With The Law

Peso v. Hollaway, 2012 BCSC 1763 is another case where there is a discontinuity between the trial judge’s statement of the law and the trial judge’s conclusion. The result seems to be supportable on the evidence set out by the trial judge. The decision, ultimately,  is based on the judge preferring the plaintiff’s evidence over the defendant’s.

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