Talk:Dobson (Litigation guardian of) v Dobson

liability insurance

The facts of this case are bound to strike Wikipedia readers as quite odd: it appears that the mother must be extremely wealthy (to be worth suing at all, and also to able to afford the legal fees of bringing a case to the SCC), but refusing to provide for her disabled son. Almost certainly what is really going on is that the action was brought in order to recover from the mother's liability insurance. The "mother's lawyers" would actually have been lawyers for her insurance company, and the mother, although technically the defendant in the case, would have been rooting for the plaintiff to win, not herself. Of course the Court's reasons need to maintain the fiction that it is an action against the mother and she will be personally liable to pay the judgment if she loses. But for purposes of the Wikipedia article, it's doing the readers a disservice not to mention the real facts of the case, in order to put it in context. I know it probably seems like mere speculation on my part, but it almost has to be true because it's the only thing that makes sense. (Because if it were actually true that the mother had a lot of money but was refusing to spend it on her child's needs, it would be much easier to make the claim against her pursuant to family maintenance legislation. In every province and territory, the parent has a duty to provide financially for the children -- there would be no need to make a speculative claim in negligence for the auto accident.) Do you object to my working that into the article? --Mathew5000 00:57, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

At the moment yes, since I'm going to edit it and don't want an edit conflict. In the long run, anything like that needs references- to guard against what you might admit to be "speculation", per WP:NOR. If references are found, it could be an interesting note. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 01:00, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm saying it is not speculation, even though it might seem so. But I'll keep an eye out for sources on this point. --Mathew5000 01:10, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Here's a source: http://www.fact.on.ca/newpaper/gm99071a.htm . The insurance company agreed to pay in any case, it was just a question of how much. The question was the nature of the liability. 203.45.95.236 (talk) 14:16, 3 February 2011 (UTC)