We are very pleased to announce a significant win for Holness and Small Law Group against ICBC at trial for our client.

We were trial counsel for a 56 year-old site superintendent who was injured in a motor vehicle accident in 2015 when he was rear-ended at a high rate of speed.  At the time of the motor vehicle accident, he was healthy, active and happy.  He was enjoying success in his profession and his personal life was very positive and fulfilling.

The motor vehicle accident had a significant impact on our client.  His injuries included a concussion, a balance impairment due to an injury to the inner ear, blurred vision, tinnitus and soft tissue injuries.  The most significant injury was the balance impairment which impacted all aspects of his life.

From the beginning, ICBC defended the claim arguing that our client did not suffer a concussion and that the balance impairment was not significant despite the expert evidence of Dr. David, a leading and very well respected Otolaryngologist, who strongly testified that the tests were conclusive confirming the injury which he classified as moderately severe and permanent.  Dr. David was further of the opinion that the balance injury would worsen with time as his ability to compensate would diminish and become more difficult to manage as he progressed in age.

In her Reasons for Judgment, the trial judge accepted our arguments and the severity of our client’s injuries as outlined by our medical experts.  In total, she awarded him $474,295.12 in damages which is broken down as follows:

  • $120,000.00 for pain and suffering (non-pecuniary damages)
  • $9,101.46 for past wage loss
  • $320,000.00 for future loss of earning capacity
  • $23,490.00 for the cost of future care
  • $1,703.66 for special damages (reimbursement of out of pocket expenses

We are also proud to announce that the trial award was significantly more than ICBC’s offer to settle made before the trial.  The trial award also exceeded our pre-trial offer to settle which will allow us to argue for punishment and double costs against ICBC for rejecting our reasonable and settlement offer and unnecessarily proceeding to trial.

This judgment is unfortunately another example of the trend of ICBC low settlement offers in 2020.

Low ICBC settlement offers have been a consistent trend especially through 2020 as noted in our previous blog posts.

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