When a person is falsely arrested the old rule was that they had two years from the date of arrest to sue the police. The ‘problem’ with that old rule was that you had to be acquitted in criminal court before you had any possibility of success in a civil suit against police. Criminal cases often ran longer than years so the limitation period would expire.
In Windmill v. Woodstock (City) Police Services Board,(2017)138 O.R.(3rd)641, the Court of Appeal of Ontario ‘corrected’ the old rule by allowing the limitation period to start from the date of acquittal in criminal court.
The way I used to do these cases was to file the civil suit before the two year limitation period was up and then I would wait to see what happened in the criminal court. If we lost in criminal court, the police lawyer and I would agree to dismiss the civil suit on a no cost basis.
