“Misnamed” defendant on product liability action can be corrected after limitations period expires: Ontario Court

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has allowed a plaintiff to add a defendant to a product liability action despite the expiry of a two-year limitation period, because doing so met the test that allows “the correction of a misnaming or misdescription of a party.”
In a statement of claim on April 12, 2006, plaintiffs Karen and Maurice Stekel launched an action against three defendants, Toyota Canada Inc. (TCI), Toyota Credit Canada Inc. (TCCI) and Scarborough Lexus Toyota (SLT), related to a Lexus Maurice Stekel had leased. The statement of claim contained an allegation, which has not been proven in court, that the car had malfunctioned, causing the driver, Karen Stekel, to lose control of the vehicle and strike a tree. Karen Stekel suffered significant physical injuries in the accident.
The plaintiff’s statement of claim asserted that TCI was engaged in the business of “manufacturing, servicing and selling automobiles.” In fact, TCI was not engaged in the manufacture of autos, nor did it manufacture the plaintiffs’ vehicle.
In the statement of defence, the defendants denied the plaintiffs’ allegations and noted that TCI was at all times the “exclusive distributor of Toyota automobiles and accessories.”
The plaintiffs did not immediately apprehend the significance that TCI was merely the distributor and not the manufacturer of their car. They sought to add the true manufacturer of the car, Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) on Sept. 8, 2008, after the two-year limitation period for an action against TMC had expired.
A case master allowed the late addition of TMC as a defendant, and the Superior Court upheld the decision on appeal. The case master said the addition met a two-part legal standard for correcting “misnomers” in actions against defendants.
The Superior Court ruled: “This two-part legal standard for ‘misnomer’ dictated by the governing authorities has been met, in that: (1) the plaintiffs clearly intended to name the ‘manufacturer’ of their vehicle, and thought they had in their Statement of Claim; and (2) TMC knew full well, nearly from the very outset of the litigation, that it was the intended defendant in relation to the plaintiffs’ claim against the manufacturer of the vehicle.”