Since 2010, Holness and Small Law Group has written over 1000 legal blog articles. We believe that staying informed and current with personal injury news and case developments is essential to providing proper legal services to our clients when advocating for their rights.
As we have discussed in prior ICBC duty to mitigate blog posts, injured claimants have a legal duty to mitigate their injuries and losses from motor vehicle accidents. In other words, injured claimants have an obligation and a responsibility to take reasonable steps to minimize their losses such as by following medical advice. If it…
Damages for pain and suffering, known as non-pecuniary damages, compensate injured claimants for the pain, suffering, loss of enjoyment of life and loss of amenities experienced as a result of the defendant’s negligence to the date of trial and into the future. The amount awarded is based on similar and comparable cases that proceeded to…
At some point during your ICBC claim, you may be sent by your lawyer to an independent medical examination (IME) with a specialist doctor such as a physiatrist, psychiatrist, orthopedic surgeon, etc.. At the IME, the specialist doctor will interview you, review your medical records and examine you. Following this, an IME report is prepared…
In previous blog articles on the ICBC 6% disbursement cap, we discussed this new law that the NDP quietly passed with the sole purpose of saving ICBC money by prejudicing against an injured claimant’s ability to present his/her case. This new law limits the amount of disbursements recoverable from ICBC to 6% of the total…
Damages for pain and suffering, which are known as non-pecuniary damages, are intended to compensate an injured claimant for pain, suffering, loss of enjoyment of life and loss of amenities. In deciding the amount of pain and suffering to award to an injured claimant, the court will take into account several factors. These factors include…
Canadian Lawyer Magazine reports on and delivers award winning content on important legal issues throughout the country. Jacqueline Small of our firm has been interviewed several times on issues relating to personal injury law in British Columbia by Canadian Lawyer Magazine. Ms. Small was recently featured in Canadian Lawyer Magazine’s story about ICBC’s 6% disbursement…
The Court of Appeal has re-defined the concept of indivisible injury in the assessment of civil damages ( Neufeldt v. Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, 2021 BCCA 327 ). The legal distinction between divisible and indivisible injuries is an important question of law in many personal injury cases. In this case review we will explain…
As discussed in prior blog posts, medical malpractice claims are notoriously complex and expensive to pursue. The main reason for this is due to the expert evidence required to prove liability and quantum . For liability, expert evidence is needed to prove that the doctor owed the patient a duty of care, that the doctor’s…
Disbursements are legal expenses. Some examples of disbursements include the cost of ordering medical records, hiring a medical expert to provide an expert opinion, court filing fees, photocopies, faxes, etc. Most personal injury lawyers will pay for all disbursements on behalf of their clients until the end of the claim. Until recently, ICBC was responsible…
We have written several blogs on the new ICBC No Fault Insurance brought in by the NDP. This new “Enhanced Care” model, as ICBC likes to refer to it as instead of No Fault Insurance, effectively eliminates any compensation for injuries suffered in a motor vehicle accident. Instead, ICBC will “take care of you” by…