Can I sue the at-fault driver for repair costs in Ontario?

Ontario redesigned this question

In most places, the at-fault driver owes you the repair and their insurance company pays it. Ontario replaced that with DCPD: when another driver damages your car, your own insurance company pays for your not-at-fault share, directly, without a lawsuit or even a negotiation with the other side.

The trade built into that design is that vehicle damage the DCPD system covers is generally not something you separately sue the other driver over. The system pays you; in exchange, the courtroom mostly leaves the picture.

So the honest first answer is that the lawsuit you are imagining is usually unnecessary — the money arrives through your own policy — and where DCPD has paid, usually unavailable too. The interesting cases are the gaps.

Where court still has a role

Litigation becomes worth considering where the DCPD system does not reach. The recurring examples are specific.

The at-fault driver was uninsured. DCPD requires an insured vehicle on the other side, so it does not respond — your own collision or uninsured automobile coverage repairs the car, and pursuing the driver personally for uncovered losses is a live option.

You carried no coverage that responds — no collision on an older car, for instance — and the at-fault driver was uninsured too. The driver is then the only source of recovery, and Small Claims Court is the usual forum.

Out-of-pocket losses no coverage picked up — a deductible you genuinely owed, items destroyed in the crash, costs that fell between files. Whether those are recoverable, and from whom, depends on facts a lawyer should read.

Talk to your own adjuster before filing anything. Some of what you are considering pursuing may already be in recovery through your insurance company, and duplicate pursuit helps nobody.

Small Claims Court and shared fault

Ontario’s Small Claims Court is the practical forum for these disputes. It handles smaller claims without requiring a lawyer, with simpler procedure and modest filing fees, up to a monetary limit set by the court rules — confirm the current limit and process with the court before filing.

Remember the clock: Ontario’s general limitation period is two years under the Limitations Act, 2002, generally from the day the claim was discovered.

Fault-sharing matters too. Ontario apportions responsibility — the same logic that puts collisions at 25, 50, or 75 percent under the Fault Determination Rules — and a recovery shrinks with your own share. A crash you consider open-and-shut may read differently in a courtroom, which is one more reason a lawyer’s opinion is worth having before a filing fee is spent.

What a property damage claim needs to succeed

Whether you are dealing with an insurance company or a deputy judge, the case is the documentation.

• The police or Collision Reporting Centre report, with the report number
• Photographs of both vehicles and the scene, taken the day of the crash
• Dash camera footage, preserved off the card before it looped
• A written repair estimate, and the final invoice showing what was actually done
• Teardown photographs documenting damage not visible at first
• Receipts for towing, storage, and a replacement vehicle
• Names and contact information for any witnesses

What a claim can include beyond the repair invoice

People treat the repair invoice as the whole claim. It is usually the largest piece, but the loss an at-fault driver caused reaches wider, and the extra items are far easier to include at the start than to bolt on later.

Towing and storage are the obvious additions — real money in this city, where a yard can charge more per week than the tow cost.

Loss of use is another: the reasonable cost of getting around while the car was down, whether that was a rental, rideshares, or transit, documented with receipts.

Personal property destroyed in the crash belongs in the claim too — a child seat, a laptop, tools in the trunk. Child seats in particular are commonly replaced after a collision on the manufacturer’s instruction, and the receipt goes in the file.

What a property damage claim never includes is anything to do with injuries. Those run through the accident benefits system and, where thresholds are met, separate injury claims — a different world entirely, and one where a lawyer rather than a repair shop is the right guide.

A complete claim generally covers:

• The cost of repairing the vehicle to pre-accident condition
• Towing from the scene and reasonable storage
• Reasonable replacement transportation for the repair period
• A deductible you genuinely absorbed, where it is recoverable in your situation
• Personal property destroyed in the crash, including a child seat
• Documented out-of-pocket costs directly caused by the crash
• Tax and licensing costs tied to a replacement vehicle, where a total loss is involved

The practical order of operations

Repair the car first when you can. Waiting on a legal outcome while the vehicle sits adds storage and rental costs, hands bare metal to a Toronto winter, and makes the damage harder to document rather than easier.

Then pursue any gap with a complete file behind you. We supply full photo documentation, the estimate, every supplement, and the final invoice on every insurance repair — and you can request copies whenever you need them, including long after pickup.

This page is general information from a repair shop, not legal advice, and we do not make lawyer referrals. Limitation periods, fault apportionment, and the value of a claim all turn on facts we cannot evaluate — talk to a lawyer about anything you intend to file.