Ms. McMillan was the front seat passenger whose car was hit by another vehicle which backed into hers in a parking lot. It was a low-speed collision. ICBC opposed paying anything, on the theory that the hit wasn’t hard enough to hurt this 70-year old lady. ICBC eventually made some very small offers. At trial, Ms. McMillan was awarded slighly more than she’d offered to settled for: https://canlii.ca/t/j858w.

Ms. McMillan applied for “double costs”. ICBC — again — opposed. They argued that Ms. McMillan’s offer was too difficult for them to understand, that it was unreasonable to expect ICBC to accept the offer.

Justice Michael Brundrett disagreed: https://canlii.ca/t/jkl71. He ordered ICBC to pay double costs — which came to nearly 3/4 of the judgment amount. So ICBC had to pay Ms. McMillan neaqrly double what she offfered to accept. ICBC also had to pay its 2 lawyers to attend court for 7 days, and prepare the case. I estimate that cost them at least $140K, So they paid out about $250K in a case the Plaintiff offered to settle for $69K.

Greedy Plaintiff lawyers? Hardly. Nasty, obstructive insurance compnay? Yup.