How have the courts in BC dealt with the cost of an offer to settle a claim for damages pursuant to Rule 9-1?

In Ward v. Klaus, 2012 BCSC 99, the plaintiff sought damages in an amount almost three times as the offer to settle received pursuant to Rule 9-1. The amount of the award was substantially less than the pre-trial offers. Mr. Justice Goepel, as he then was, concluded at para. 45, “I cannot find that the offer was one that ought reasonably to have been accepted.” Goepel J. found that though there was a disparity in the outcome and the offer, disparity is not determinative when awarding costs. Goepel J., at para. 48, considered the financial circumstances of the plaintiff as not being impoverished but for the plaintiffs to pay costs “an award will certainly significantly reduce the value of the judgment.” Goepel J. observed that a modest increase in loss of future earning capacity “would have enabled the plaintiff to best the defendant’s offers”: para. 52. The plaintiff was awarded her costs up to the first offer and ordered the parties to bear their own costs thereafter. In doing so, Goepel J. said: