Delta Police Sgt. Brad Cooper holds a photograph of an 8 kilogram solid-gold, diamond-encrusted statue of an eagle that was stolen from Ron Shore during a robbery on Sunday, during a news conference in Delta, B.C., on Monday May 30, 2016. A B.C. Supreme Court judge says a lawsuit against insurance companies over stolen sculptures made of gold and silver can proceed despite years-long "inordinate and inexcusable" delays. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

VANCOUVER - It has been nearly a decade since British Columbia businessman Ron Shore said he was violently attacked and robbed of two valuable sculptures that he had made as part of a charity treasure hunt he'd conceived to raise money for breast cancer research.

A B.C. Supreme Court has now ruled Shore's legal action against the insurers of the two eagles — one solid gold encrusted with hundreds of diamonds and the other solid silver — should proceed to trial more than six years after a lawsuit was filed, despite what the judge said are "inordinate and inexcusable" delays.

The lawsuit said Shore had intended to sell the golden eagle to finance the $1 million prize for the "final winner" of the treasure hunt.

Shore's company, Forgotten Treasures International, used the sculptures for marketing the charity event, displaying them at public events, and after one such event in Delta, B.C., on May 29, 2016, Shore says he had the eagles in a backpack and was about to put them in the trunk of his vehicle when he was "attacked, hit over the head and robbed.”

“The thieves cut the strap of the backpack in which the eagles were concealed, and ran away,” his company's lawsuit says.

Shore says he gave chase and caught up to the thief's getaway vehicle, grabbing hold of them through a window, but the lawsuit says the assailant rolled up the window and trapped Shore by the arm and took off.

He was dragged for about 180 metres before being pushed from the truck and run over after falling to the road, he says.

Shore said in an interview Wednesday that the media attention after the ordeal was intense.

"I was not prepared for any of that," he said.

He said the lawsuit has been costly, and he's been "characterized as foolish" for carrying the eagles in a backpack, but he said the insurance policy he negotiated mandated him to carry them in that way.

After the robbery, which Shore says led to painful injuries requiring surgeries, his insurance claim was denied and Forgotten Treasures filed a lawsuit in 2018 against insurer Lloyd's Underwriters, broker HUB International and others.

The B.C. Supreme Court ruling posted Tuesday said the golden eagle is valued at more than $1 million and the silver piece around $50,000, and Shore had insured the sculptures with Lloyd's and Endeavour Insurance Services, through a policy brokered by HUB.

Years of legal wrangling have ensued since the claim was denied.

Forgotten Treasures at one point won a default judgment against Lloyd's, and the ruling says Shore "wasted two years" trying to preserve the default judgment and avoid having to take the case to court on its merits.

But even with the delays, Justice Lisa Warren found it was in the "interests of justice to allow the claim to proceed."

The judge found some of the delays were due to Shore doing some of his own legal work as a "lay litigant," and evidence he gave about his health and financial situation "is vague and limited to his own bald assertions without any objective corroboration."

Warren also found no evidence that the defendants in the case "took issue with the pace of the litigation until the summer of 2024."

"The defendants have not sought a trial date. There have been no attempts on their part to schedule examinations for discovery," Warren said.

The defendants had applied to dismiss the case in December 2024, and the judge had to wrestle with Forgotten Treasures' "presumptive entitlement" to have the case heard on its "merits."

"This was a close call," Warren said.

Shore said there's much about the case and the theft he's unable to talk about, and "there are things that may seem suspicious, but at the end of the day it'll all come out."

He said he has "nothing to hide," and that there's no "skulduggery" involved, but he said he's been unfairly maligned under a looming cloud of suspicion, despite his benevolent motives to raise money for breast cancer research following the death of a woman he loved.

"The No. 1 thing about the entire project, it's always been to raise money for breast cancer research, period. I didn't stand to make or lose any money on it," he said. "They often say that no good deed goes unpunished."

Nearly nine years since the alleged theft, Delta police have not made any arrests.

"The robbery remains unsolved," Insp. James Sandberg said in an emailed statement. "No information has been provided that has led to any evidence recovery."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 12, 2025.

News from © The Canadian Press, 2025