Mental injury has also been referred to by courts as psychological injury, psychiatric injury, emotional trauma, nervous shock, hysteria, mental distress, and a host of medical terms such as conversion disorder, somatic system disorder, post traumatic stress disorder and clinical depression. The Supreme Court of Canada in Saadati has synthesized all these terms down to…
This Court of Appeal case displays the behaviour of the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, nurses and doctors in British Columbia when it come to defending against medically negligent mistakes. This appeals arose out of a medical negligence action in which a nurse and doctor were found to be negligent at the emergency department of Powell River General Hospital.…
Living in Surrey has its advantages although after a car accident personal injury lawyers must file suit in another city such as Vancouver. Surrey has an ICBC claim centre, convenient after a car accident, but does not currently have a Supreme Court Registry. The Vancouver Court building houses the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal Registries. Here is…
There have always been distractions for drivers since the invention of the automobile, yet the buzz term “distracted driving” claims to be a new phenomenon. This deliberately euphemistic and ambiguous term has been used to justify a massive increase in fines to the public and higher insurance premiums hence more profits for Canadian auto insurers. In…
This injury claimant made an offer to settle in the amount of $195,000 about 2 weeks before trial and ICBC responded with an unrealistic and meager $70,000 offer. It only took the jury 6 hours to award $294,500 as damages for the injuries she sustained in a motor vehicle accident. This jury verdict was an incredible 4x…
Finding a good personal injury lawyer is easier for your ICBC claim than ever before as a result of marketing requirements for lawyers. Most young lawyer will not remember but there was a time that the Law Society did not permit lawyers to even state an area of preferred practice. The code of conduct for…
In a short but forceful unanimous three panel decision, the Court of Appeal has rung the death knell for the term “crumbing skull” to describe physical and mental conditions that may deteriorate in the future (Gordon v. Ahn,2017 BCCA 221). Other similar terms used by the court in the past include “psychological thin skull”, “eggshell personality” and “eggshell skull”.…
The Supreme Court of Canada has coined the phrase “mental injury” in a sweeping decision abolishing misguided prejudices over “psychological”, “emotional” or “psychiatric” injury claims in the law of tort. The requirement that an injury claimant suffer a medically recognized psychiatric or psychological illness or condition, as a bar to recover, has been eliminated. The ICBC injury claimant’s award of $100,000…
Our law makes it more difficult to sue local governments than private citizens. Local governments are treated differently from other litigants in BC by requiring injury claimants to give written notice within a very short period following an incident to the local government. Most local citizens are unaware of this requirement and when injured on city…
This car accident claimant with born with spina bifida, scoliosis and kyphosis. When she was three she had her fibula taken from her left leg and fused into her spine. All her life, she has suffered pain, primarily from the kyphosis. However, she has always managed that pain (Cantwell v. Warren, 2017 BCSC 856). The car accident…
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