The settlement amount offered to ICBC and the timing of the offer is important to a claim for double costs, even in “Fast Track” cases. As a general rule, the successful party in a fast-track personal injury case is awarded $6,500 in pre-trial costs and $1,500 in costs for each day of trial. Where an offer to…
If you have a personal injury case in which the Court has awarded more than the offer you made before trial, you may be entitled to double your legal costs. The relevant parts of The Supreme Court Rule 9-1(5) and (6) state: (5) in a proceeding in which an offer to settle has been made, the…
The Court of Appeal has upheld a double legal costs award against the Province of British Columbia after the Province lost a claim against a private BC company (British Columbia v. Salt Spring Ventures Incorporated,2015 BCCA 343) . Even though the settlement offer was not one which ought reasonably to have been accepted by the Province…
There were two offers to settle made by the claimant in this case: one in the amount of $800,000 before trial and the other during the course of trial, in the amount of $1,010,000. The defendant offered to settle for $55,000.00. At trial the claimant was found 50% at fault for a car accident and…
In this personal injury case the ICBC insured driver rear-ended the claimant and knocked him off his motorcycle. The claimant suffered injuries to his neck which required surgery and ultimately resulted in devastating physical effects due to the onset of conversion disorder. The court awarded the claimant $2,735,818.16 for injuries received as a result of…
The injury claimant was found to be totally at fault for a car accident at the intersection of King George Boulevard and 68th Avenue, in Surrey, B.C. His personal injury claim was therefore dismissed and today I review the decision of the Judge regarding the case costs awarded to the successful defendant (Henry v. Bennett, 2014 BCSC…
If an offer to settle is not accepted within a reasonable amount of time double costs, being a punitive award, can be awarded to the successful claimant if that offer is beaten at trial. This principle applies to almost all personal injury cases including the ones in which a claimant has beat an offer to…
This is a review of an award of double costs against an ICBC insured for failure to accept a reasonable offer of settlement( J.D. v. Chandra,2014 BCSC 1272) . This successful personal injury claimant offered to settle her ICBC case for $200,000 after attending a Judicial Settlement Conference. The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, ICBC, rejected the…
The personal injury award following a 25 day trial in this ICBC gets double costs case(Minhas v. Sartor,2014 BCSC 47) was $76,653.00, much less than the $3 million sought by the claimant and the $275,000 offered by ICBC before trial. The judge, in one of the first times in BC legal history, has awarded ICBC…