Court rejects insurer's bid to dismiss case that went dark 6+ years ago

Concept showing of Problems with legal system, delay or slow in judicial justice system by using judge hammer, balance scale and wall clock — iStock.com/lakshmiprasad S

Security National Insurance Company and Belfor (Canada) have lost their bid to dismiss a home insurance claim that has dragged on for more than six years.

B.C. Supreme Court agreed the delay was “inordinate.” It also found the claimant’s reasons for the delay were not persuasive.

And so, why did it decline the insurer’s motion to dismiss the matter for a lack of action?

“I conclude that on balance it is in the interests of justice that Security National and TD Direct’s application be dismissed,” B.C. Supreme Court Associate Justice John Bilawich ruled in a judgment released July 11.

Ultimately, the court found the claim met five of the nine criteria required to prove it’s in the interests of justice to proceed with a case. Among them, Security National and Belfor “did not provide any notice or warning to [the claimant] that they intended to seek dismissal of her action if she failed to take steps to prosecute her action,” Bilawich wrote.

“The defendants had no obligation to provide such a warning, but their failure to press her to advance her claim beyond the two letters following up on Belfor’s document demand [after the discovery ended in September 2018] is a relevant consideration.”

The court found four other criteria that favoured their moving ahead with the matter:

The court found no prejudice against the insurer and the restoration firm for proceeding
The claim was already at a “moderately advanced” stage
The court said it’s in the public interest for the courts to resolve disputes in a timely and cost-effective manner
The claimant has an arguable claim, the judge found

Background

Cheryl Louie’s home in Vancouver, B.C., flooded in April 2015. Security National accepted her home insurance claim in May 2015. Belfor began restoration and remediation work in Louie’s home in July or August 2015.

A dispute arose over repairs done by Belfor. Louie sued Security National for $220,000 that she claimed she had to pay following Belfor’s remediation efforts. The insurer brought Belfor in as a defendant in the lawsuit.

Loue hired a law firm to represent her in the matter. In an examination for discovery, Louie’s lawyer queried a Belfor representative for more than two hours in September 2018.

One day later, Belfor’s counsel sent letters to Louie’s counsel requesting more documents. They sent a follow-up letter to request the documents again in January 2019. They tried again by email to Louie’s lawyer in February 2019.

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And that’s when the file went dark.

Security National and Belfor filed a motion to dismiss the action in January 2025, citing Louie’s lack of action to move the claim forward — a delay of 10 years after the flood damage occurred, and more than six years after the claim was first launched.

What happened next

The B.C. Supreme Court found the court delay was ‘inordinate,’ even though it shaved a year off the delay because of the COVID pandemic. (The courts were inaccessible during that time.)

The court also expressed skepticism about the claimant’s reasons for the delay. The homeowner pleaded she had health issues during that time, and was tending to the health issues of her 97-year-old mother.

Moreover, she told the court, she had financial issues as a result of paying her lawyers for their work on the claim. These issues ultimately had the firm considering an action to withdraw from her case.

During this time — for about two years, the court found — Louie said she wasn’t receiving communications from the law firm representing her on the file. For this reason, she didn’t know she had to proceed with the claim or else risk having it dismissed, she told the court.

The court didn’t find her reasons for the delay persuasive.

“While I am sympathetic to [the claimant’s] financial, health and family circumstances generally, I do not have sufficiently detailed or persuasive evidence with which to conclude she should be excused for the failure to prosecute her claim during the 5 years + 4 months period of ‘inordinate delay’ found in the previous section,” Bilawich wrote. “I accept that Ms. Louie’s delay was not intentional or tactical in nature.”

Bilawich found Louie’s financial issues with her previous counsel contributed to the delay. But despite ongoing issues with her counsel, it wasn’t a compelling reason to delay her case for so long, the court ruled.

“Based on the evidence tendered, it does appear Ms. Louie was aware shortly after September 2018 that her ability to continue prosecuting her claim with original counsel was problematic based on their fee dispute and her limited financial resources,” Bilawich wrote. “She should have eventually realized that unless she could find other counsel who was prepared to work within the financial means she had available, she would have to proceed without counsel.”

Louie told the court that, with the help of her friend, who had experience as a lawyer, she was prepared to represent herself.