What are the costs consequences if a dependant rejects a reasonable settlement offer and loses at trial in Ontario?

Rejecting a reasonable settlement offer and then doing worse at trial can have real costs consequences in Ontario. Ontario civil litigation, governed by the Rules of Civil Procedure, generally has costs follow the outcome — the losing or less successful party can be ordered to pay some of the other side's legal costs — and a court can also take into account how the parties behaved along the way, including whether an offer to settle was unreasonably refused.

In a dependant support claim, this means a claimant who turns down a settlement offer that turns out to have been fair, and then receives less at trial (or nothing at all), risks being ordered to pay costs they wouldn't have faced had they accepted the offer. This cuts both ways — an estate that unreasonably refuses a fair offer from a claimant can face the same exposure. Because costs outcomes depend on the specific offer, its timing, and how the trial result compares to it, there's no fixed formula for what a party will owe; this is exactly the kind of risk worth discussing with a lawyer before deciding whether to accept or reject any settlement offer in an estate dispute.