The Canadian civil law handles differences that crop up amongst individuals within the society. It also involves personal disputes in business contracts, property ownership and obligations owed to family members. A Canadian civil action or lawsuit occurs when a person (the plaintiff), takes a legal action against another person (the defendant), concerning a personal dispute. In such instances, the plaintiff is required to provide evidence to the judge or jury beyond any reasonable doubt that the defendant indeed has a liability. In case the plaintiff provides enough evidence to support his or her case, in most instances, the court demands that the defendant pays the plaintiff a given amount of money as a form of compensation for the damages experienced by the plaintiff.
In this particular case, the plaintiff is the man who got into ‘The Happy Hour Sports Bar’ in a drunken state and demanded for a beer, while the defendants are Bertha, the bar attendant as well as the owner of “The Happy Hour Sports Bar. In our case, the plaintiff filed a notice with the court which contained the name of parties involved in this case, indicating the initiation of a lawsuit. This was done under personal injury law which is a branch of tort law covering any damage done to a person, ones rights, reputation or even assets. The plaintiff filed pleadings with the court containing the claim and accusations that he had against Bertha and the bar owner. In his claims, he demanded for compensation for the serious head injuries that he suffered from the push by the bar attendant in his attempt to buy beer.
On their part, the defendants replied to these claims when they filed a statement of defense with the court. In this statement, Bertha argued that it was against the bar’s regulations to sell beer to any customer who disturbed the peace of other customers. According to her, what she did was within her duties as the regulations set by her employer required that any customer who caused disturbances is supposed to be sent out. She also recorded that the man’s head injuries were only as a result of a mere accident but not her intention. These sentiments were also supported by the bar owner in his statement.
As a Canadian judge, I would invite both parties for a pretrial conference at the chambers and allow them to discuss the dispute, while still attempting to find out if the parties are likely to settle their dispute out of the court. If such a possibility does not exist, I would then set the date of trial.
With regards to the trial, it is clear that the Canadian law requires bar owners to handle their customers in an appropriate manner. However, this does not excuse the customers to behave in a reckless manner. From the evidence presented by both parties in this particular case, the plaintiff came in a drunken state and acted in a manner that was likely to disturb the peace of other customers which rendered the bar attendant to send him out as stipulated by her occupational regulations. She even made an effort to call a cab to take the customer home, something that indicated that she was acting in the customer’s best interests. When the plaintiff came back for the second time, the bar attendant had to send the customer away for the second time. However, she seemed to have used unnecessary force this time, as a result of which the plaintiff fell and was seriously injured. For this reason, the defendant’s act breached her duty and therefore, she, together with the bar owner should take the responsibility to clear the plaintiff’s hospital bills. The fact that the plaintiff did not obey the defendant’s regulations has led to an apportionment of the fault, and has therefore reduced the damages considerably.