The case of a Surrey man who was mauled by an RCMP police dog named Jeck during his arrest in 2005 was back in court this month, 19 years after the fact.
Jean-Claude Emond was initially awarded $63,750 in non-pecuniary damages in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver. He’d initially sought $5,720,000 in damages.
“The plaintiff is awarded a total of $29,666.73 in disbursements which, together with the award of $35,970 in tariff costs, totals $65,636.73 in costs before adjustments for contributory negligence, or any reduction of costs due to the defendant’s offer to settle,” Associate Judge Scott Neilsen decided on April 10.
Jean-Claude Emond was initially determined to be entitled to $85,000 after the court found the Federal Crown negligent but his award was reduced by 25 per cent on account of Emond himself being found to be contributorily negligent.
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Associate Judge Scott Nielsen’s April 10 judgment involved an assessment of Emond’s costs pursuant to Justice Amy Francis’s April 8, 2022 order that costs were payable to the plaintiff by the Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General of British Columbia and Her Majesty the Queen in right of the Province of British Columbia.
Francis found in 2021 one constable’s failure to control the dog after Emond was under police control to be negligent but Emond had not established that five other police officers named in his lawsuit were negligent, and “not only were the plaintiff’s claims against the other individuals dismissed, he was ordered to pay their costs.”
Nielson summarized, in his own reasons for judgment, the trial judge’s reasons for judgment cited in Emond v. Surrey (City), 2021 BCSC 1331. During his arrest on May 4, 2005 Emond was bit multiple bites, taken from the scene to hospital by ambulance then remanded at Surrey Pre-Trial for 18 hours before being released.
Emond was 45 at the time and 61 during the trial. The court heard he ran from police and was chased over fences and through back yards before being bitten and handcuffed behind a shed. The dog also bit one of the constables, on the foot.
The court heard Emond sustained deep lacerations on his left leg, right knee, right bicep, and left ankle.
Nielson noted proceedings “took a lengthy period of time to resolve. The plaintiff concedes, in part, that the litigation was not pursued with the utmost diligence.”