Proving Mental Injury (Psychological Injury) In ICBC Personal Injury Claims – Expert Evidence Not Required

The Supreme Court of Canada in Saadati v. Moorhead 2017 SCC 28 has set a precedent which helps injured claimants access justice more easily against ICBC and other insurance companies for mental injuries such as depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and somatic symptom disorder. In this case, the injured claimant was injured in a motor…

Read more

Defining Mental Injury in Personal Injury Claims

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…

Read more

$15,000 for Mental Distress and Total Disability Defined

This 36 year old injury claimant sought  an order requiring Empire Life Insurance Company  to pay her long-term disability benefits as the insurance company refused to pay the disability benefits (Tanious v. The Empire Life Insurance Company,2016 BCSC 110). The retroactive value of the claim was no more than $60,000, after making appropriate deductions for taxes and CPP…

Read more