22 Dec Possible Divergent Interests of the Defendants

The Plaintiff in Alragheb v. Francis, 2020 BCSC 1712, was a Syrian refugee who had been involved in two motor vehicle accidents since arriving in Canada.

In the first accident, the Plaintiff was riding his bicycle and he collided with a car driven by the first Defendant. The parties agreed that they were equally liable.

In the second accident, the Plaintiff was driving a car and he was rear-ended when stopped at a red light. The second Defendant admitted that she was responsible for that accident.

The Plaintiff suffered injuries in both accidents. The injuries were indivisible as opposed to divisible. 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. 

On first impression, one may have thought that the two Defendants had divergent interests from each other. While each of the Defendants shared a common interest to allocate as much fault as possible to the Plaintiff, each Defendant also likely wanted to allocate as much of the assessed damages as possible to the other Defendant.

Our Court of Appeal addressed the issue of the same counsel acting for more than one defendant where there may appear to be divergent interests. It was decided that where each Defendant had the same insurer, as was the case here, a conflict of interest did not arise.