The New Rule 53.03: Agha v. Munroe, 2022 ONSC 2508

This decision is one of the first to address the new Rule 53.03 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, which came into effect on March 31, 2022, and deals with the timeliness of expert reports. Rule 53.03 requires a party who intends to call an expert witness at trial to serve the expert's report not less than 90 days before the pre-trial conference, with any responding report to be served no less than 60 days before the pre-trial conference. For those in non-compliance with Rule 53.03, the old Rule 53.08 provided an "escape clause", which read as follows:

• If evidence is admissible only with leave of the trial judge under a provision listed in subrule (2), leave shall be granted on such terms as are just and with an adjournment if necessary unless to do so will cause prejudice to the opposite party or will cause undue delay in the conduct of the trial.