Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Whether s. 14 of The Proceedings Against the Crown Act, 2019 (PACA 2019) bars civil jury trials whenever Saskatchewan Government Insurance (SGI), as a Crown corporation, is a party to the action.
• Interpretation of SGI’s role under The Automobile Accident Insurance Act (AAIA) and whether its statutory status and “agent of the Crown” character make it equivalent to “the Crown” for PACA 2019 purposes.
• Application of judicial comity and horizontal stare decisis: when a Court of King’s Bench judge may depart from another coordinate judge’s decision (Tuttle v Ermine) on the same legal point.
• Scope and timing of PACA 2019, including whether its provisions on jury trials apply retrospectively to actions commenced before the statute came into force.
• Standard for granting leave to appeal: assessing whether the proposed appeal has sufficient merit and legal importance to justify appellate intervention at an interlocutory stage.
• Practical impact on litigants’ procedural rights in motor vehicle injury claims involving SGI, particularly the availability of jury trials in high-volume insurance litigation.

Facts of the case
Amanda Arnault commenced two civil tort actions in the Court of King’s Bench of Saskatchewan arising out of separate motor vehicle accidents. In the first action, started on May 25, 2011, she sued Charlene Arnault, Edward Clarke, and Saskatchewan Government Insurance (SGI). In the second, commenced on January 20, 2012, she sued Ross Kimble and SGI. In both actions, SGI was named in its capacity as the statutory insurer under The Automobile Accident Insurance Act (AAIA), the legislation that establishes and governs Saskatchewan’s public automobile insurance scheme. The actions proceeded jointly through the litigation process.
As the matters moved toward trial, Ms. Arnault sought to have her claims heard by a civil jury. On July 3, 2024, she delivered civil jury demand notices to the Registrar of the Court of King’s Bench in each action. SGI, which is both a public insurer and an agent of the Crown, responded by bringing an application on July 15, 2025, to strike the jury notices. The central premise of SGI’s application was that, by virtue of its status as a Crown corporation and agent of the provincial Crown, civil jury trials are prohibited where it is a party, under s. 14 of The Proceedings Against the Crown Act, 2019 (PACA 2019).
The AAIA framework is crucial context. Under that Act, SGI operates as the statutory insurer for motor vehicle accidents in Saskatchewan, assuming obligations beyond those of a purely private insurer. The earlier decision in Tuttle v Ermine had emphasized that, by virtue of s. 45 of the AAIA, SGI occupies a special statutory role “beyond that accorded to ordinary insurers,” and that this status supports treating it as “the Crown” for the purposes of PACA 2019’s procedural rules, including the provision on jury trials. Although the present decision does not reproduce policy wording in a traditional sense, the statutory provisions governing SGI’s status and authority function much like policy terms: they define when and how SGI can be sued, what rights it has within litigation, and whether claims involving it can proceed before a jury.
In Tuttle, the plaintiff had sued an impaired, uninsured driver for injuries arising from a collision, and SGI was added as a third party because of its role as statutory insurer of last resort. SGI succeeded in that case in having the jury notice struck. The judge there held that PACA 2019 applies retrospectively and that SGI is properly regarded as the Crown for the purposes of s. 14, meaning a civil jury trial was not available. That decision became the key precedent relied on by SGI in the Arnault litigation.

The chambers decision and legal framework
When SGI’s application to strike the jury notices came before a Chambers judge of the Court of King’s Bench, the earlier ruling in Tuttle v Ermine was “front and centre”. SGI argued that Tuttle was dispositive: it had already resolved that PACA 2019 applies retrospectively and that SGI is to be treated as the Crown under s. 14, such that jury trials are barred whenever SGI is a party. On that basis, SGI contended that the Chambers judge was effectively bound to follow Tuttle under the principles of judicial comity and horizontal stare decisis.
Ms. Arnault opposed the application and sought to preserve her right to a jury trial. She argued that Tuttle was distinguishable on its facts and, more importantly, that it was wrongly decided. Her core complaint was that the judge in Tuttle had conflated SGI’s limited, statutory intervention authority and special status as a public insurer with a direct action against the Crown itself, and had treated SGI as the Crown without explicit statutory language to that effect in PACA 2019. She also contended that the decision unduly inferred a legislative intention to remove a long-standing substantive right to a civil jury without clear, express wording.
The Chambers judge analyzed the question through the lens of judicial comity, relying on the Supreme Court of Canada’s guidance in R v Sullivan. Under Sullivan, a judge of a superior trial court should generally follow decisions of other judges of the same court and may depart only in limited circumstances: where the earlier decision has been undermined by later appellate authority, was reached per incuriam (through carelessness or inadvertence), or was made in exigent circumstances or without full consideration. The Chambers judge identified four key findings in Tuttle: that PACA 2019 has retrospective application; that SGI, even as a third party, is a “party” for purposes of s. 14; that s. 45 of the AAIA gives SGI enhanced status beyond that of a private insurer; and that SGI should be treated as “the Crown” for the purposes of s. 14 of PACA 2019.
He concluded that Tuttle was not factually distinguishable from Arnault. The difference that SGI had been added as a third party in Tuttle, whereas it was named as a defendant from the outset in Arnault’s actions, was dismissed as immaterial. In both situations SGI was a party to the litigation for the purposes of applying s. 14 of PACA 2019. He further held that none of the Sullivan exceptions to horizontal stare decisis were engaged. In particular, he rejected the argument that Tuttle was per incuriam, finding nothing careless or inadvertent in that judge’s analysis and seeing no obvious error on the face of the reasons.
On that basis, the Chambers judge held he was bound to follow Tuttle. He therefore concluded that SGI enjoys immunity from civil jury trials under s. 14 of PACA 2019 whenever it is a party, and ordered that the civil jury demand notices in both of Ms. Arnault’s actions be struck. This effectively converted the intended jury trials into judge-alone proceedings unless overturned on appeal.

The application for leave to appeal
Unwilling to accept the loss of her chosen mode of trial, Ms. Arnault sought leave to appeal the Chambers decision to the Court of Appeal for Saskatchewan. Because the order striking jury notices is interlocutory, leave was required. The application came before Justice Kalmakoff of the Court of Appeal sitting in Chambers.
The governing test for leave to appeal, drawn from Rothmans, Benson & Hedges Inc. v Saskatchewan and later cases such as Hawryliw v Smith and Michel v Saskatchewan, centers on two considerations: merit and importance. An applicant must show that the proposed appeal is of sufficient merit to warrant the Court’s attention and of sufficient importance either to the proceedings themselves, to the relevant field of practice or state of the law, or to the administration of justice more broadly. In assessing merit, the Court looks for something more than a hopeless or frivolous case, but it does not decide the appeal itself; the question is whether the appeal is arguably viable, not whether it will succeed. Importance is assessed by asking whether the issue could significantly affect the course or outcome of the proceedings, raise a novel or controversial issue of practice, engage a new or unsettled point of law, or have implications that extend beyond the particular litigants.
In her draft notice of appeal, Ms. Arnault framed the proposed grounds around the alleged misinterpretation of PACA 2019 and the mischaracterization of SGI’s status. She argued that the Chambers judge conflated SGI’s limited, statutory intervention authority with a direct action against the Crown, inferred a legislative intent to abolish civil jury rights where SGI is a party without clear language, and improperly equated an “agent of the Crown” with “the Crown” in the absence of explicit statutory wording. Although SGI attempted to characterize the appeal as primarily an attack on the Chambers judge’s decision to follow horizontal stare decisis, Justice Kalmakoff rejected that characterization. He held that the real point of the proposed appeal is whether the interpretation of s. 14 of PACA 2019, as adopted via Tuttle, is correct.

The appellate court’s reasoning on leave
On the question of merit, Justice Kalmakoff emphasized that the threshold is not high at the leave stage. The issue is whether the proposed appeal is frivolous, vexatious, or plainly destined to fail in light of the applicable standard of review, not whether it is likely to succeed on the merits. The central issue is a question of statutory interpretation: how s. 14 of PACA 2019 should be read in relation to SGI’s status as a Crown corporation and statutory insurer under the AAIA. Questions of pure statutory interpretation attract a correctness standard of review on appeal. Because there is at least an arguable case that the Chambers judge’s interpretation may be wrong, the Court found that the proposed appeal could not be said to be frivolous or hopeless.
Justice Kalmakoff also considered whether allowing the appeal at this interlocutory stage would unduly delay the proceedings or add disproportionately to their cost. While acknowledging that an appeal would inevitably cause additional delay and expense, he held that in the particular circumstances these consequences did not outweigh the need to resolve a serious and arguable legal question that goes to the mode of trial and the parties’ substantive procedural rights.
Turning to importance, the Court of Appeal found that the issues raised are clearly significant. The question of whether s. 14 of PACA 2019 prohibits jury trials in matters where SGI is a party had not yet been addressed by the Court of Appeal itself, despite SGI’s status as a highly prolific litigant in the province due to its role under the AAIA. The interpretation of this provision is not only central to Ms. Arnault’s two actions but also has ramifications across a large volume of personal injury and insurance litigation involving SGI. The issue raises an unsettled point of law and transcends the particular facts of the case, because a definitive appellate ruling will clarify the availability of civil juries in a wide range of future proceedings involving SGI and potentially other Crown entities.
In light of these factors, Justice Kalmakoff held that both branches of the Rothmans test were satisfied. The proposed appeal has sufficient prima facie merit and raises issues of sufficient importance to the state of the law and the administration of justice to warrant consideration by a full panel of the Court of Appeal. Accordingly, he granted leave to appeal. He was careful to note that, having granted leave, he would be circumspect in his reasons and would leave the actual determination of the merits of the appeal to the panel that will hear it.

Outcome and status of monetary relief
The immediate outcome of the decision is procedural rather than substantive. The successful party in this Court of Appeal ruling is the appellant, Amanda Arnault: her application for leave to appeal is granted, and she is now entitled to bring a full appeal challenging the Chambers judge’s interpretation of s. 14 of PACA 2019 and the striking of her civil jury notices. No damages, compensation, or quantifiable monetary award were decided in this judgment, and even the question of costs of the leave application was expressly reserved for the panel that will hear the appeal. As a result, the total amount ordered in favor of the successful party cannot be determined from this decision, because neither liability nor damages nor costs have yet been fixed or awarded in her favour.