Steve Moore is surrounded by reporters after leaving NHL headquarters in New York, April 26, 2005.Reuters
The latest trial date set in Steve Moore's lawsuit against Todd Bertuzzi will see the case finally come to Ontario Superior Court after 10 years and six months to the day when Bertuzzi attacked Moore during an NHL game.
On March 8, 2004, Bertuzzi, then playing for the Vancouver Canucks, jumped Moore, then 25, punched him repeatedly and drove him into the ice. Moore sustained three broken vertebrae, a concussion and lasting brain damage. He never played in the NHL again and in 2006 launched a lawsuit against Bertuzzi and the Canucks seeking more than $38-million in damages for his lost hockey career and a post-hockey career Moore says he is denied because of the effects of his injuries.
After years of legal wrangling over everything from the proper jurisdiction to a secret deal between Bertuzzi, the Canucks and former Canucks head coach Marc Crawford, the case will come to trial in Superior Court in Toronto on Sept. 8, 2014. The jury trial is expected to last up to three months.
The previous trial date was September, 2012 but when Moore's lawyer, Tim Danson, learned of a secret agreement between Bertuzzi, Crawford and the company that owned the Canucks in 2008, Orca Bay, there was another delay. The agreement saw Bertuzzi drop his third-party claim against Crawford and then the Canucks, Crawford and Bertuzzi dismissed all cross-claims between each other. It also called for Bertuzzi, Crawford and the Canucks to share the cost of any damages awarded to Moore but the court did not make public how the three parties would split the payments.
Danson asked the court to reveal the details of the agreement. The court eventually allowed Danson to see the agreement but did not make it public.
Follow me on Twitter: @dshoalts
Get all the latest Globe and Mail hockey coverage on Twitter: @globehockey