In his written decision, Justice Theodore Matlow noted the jury's assessment of punitive damages was "very high and perhaps without precedent" but described the award as "entirely reasonable in light of the evidence".

[15] Dissenting in part, Justice John I. Laskin found Pilot's behaviour was reprehensible and the $1 million punitive damage award was justified.

Justice Binnie accepted the standard for imposing punitive damages articulated in Hill v Church of Scientology of Toronto: "Punitive damages are awarded against a defendant in exceptional cases for 'malicious, oppressive and high-handed' misconduct that 'offends the court's sense of decency'..."[17] Binnie set out the following principles to guide trial judges in their charges to juries: (1) Punitive damages are very much the exception rather than the rule, (2) imposed only if there has been high-handed, malicious, arbitrary or highly reprehensible misconduct that departs to a marked degree from ordinary standards of decent behaviour.

(5) Punitive damages are generally given only where the misconduct would otherwise be unpunished or where other penalties are or are likely to be inadequate to achieve the objectives of retribution, deterrence and denunciation.

(11) Judges and juries in our system have usually found that moderate awards of punitive damages, which inevitably carry a stigma in the broader community, are generally sufficient.

[19] Justice LeBel agreed generally with the majority's description of principles governing punitive damages and, in particular, the importance of rationality and proportionality in shaping any such award.

However, the original jury award in this case failed the rationality test because of its sole purpose of punishing the insurer's bad faith.

[20] The reduced award at the Court of Appeal, according to Lebel J., satisfied both of these tests, "impos[ing] significant punishment for the bad faith of Pilot without upsetting the proper balance between the compensatory and punitive functions of tort law.

While deterrence and denunciation both still play a role, since it broke away from criminal law in the Middle Ages, in its core function, tort law has been compensatory or corrective...The purpose of this part of our legal system remains to make good the loss suffered, no less, no more...The award of punitive damages in discussion here leads us far away from this principle.

In the end, we upheld the outcome and it seemed to me that on a human scale, a massive injustice had been corrected and a very powerful message sent to the insurance industry.