Is there any case law in which a plaintiff can claim damages from a disability insurance contract for loss of income as a result of a tortfeasor's negligence?

Ontario, Canada


The following excerpt is from Rowe v. Unum Life Insurance Company of America, 2006 CanLII 41293 (ON SC):

Also at issue is whether the consequential financial losses can be said to be within the reasonable contemplation of the parties at the time of the making of the disability insurance contract. Returning to the decision of Hadley v. Baxendale, supra, the following is stated at paragraph 3: We think the proper rule in such a case as the present is this. Where two parties have made a contract which one of them has broken the damages which the other party ought to receive in respect of such breach of contract should be such as may fairly and reasonably be considered as either arising naturally, i.e., according to the usual course of things, from such breach of contract itself, or such as may reasonably be supposed to have been in the contemplation of both parties at the time they made the contract as the probable result of the breach of it. If special circumstances under which the contract was actually made were communicated by the plaintiffs to the defendants, and thus known to both parties, the damages resulting from the breach of such a contract which they would reasonably contemplate would be the amount of injury which would ordinarily follow from a beach of contract under the special circumstances so known and communicated. But, on the other hand, if these special circumstances were wholly unknown to the party breaking the contract, he, at the most, could only be supposed to have had in his contemplation the amount of injury which would arise generally, and in the real multitude of cases not affected by any special circumstances, from such a breach of contract. For, had the special circumstances been known, the parties might have specially provided for the breach of contract by special terms as to the damages in that case; and of this advantage it would be very unjust to deprive them.

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