The Court of Appeal has done away with any legal basis for ICBC’s policy of denying disability benefits when total disability arises beyond the first 104 weeks of a car accident(Symons v. Insurance Corporation of British Columbia,2016 BCCA 207 ). Long term disability benefits for personal injury claims must now be paid for future periods of…
This personal injury claimant was awarded over $700,000 after ICBC failed to take her injuries seriously following six “minimal damage”, also called by ICBC “low velocity”, motor vehicle accidents. ICBC relied on Dr. William Koch, a registered psychologist in B.C. to argue that the claimant had pre-existing psychological disorders not related to the car accidents. Dr. Koch…
What happens if a claimant does not accept an ICBC offer and the court awards less than the amount offered? Are you forced to accept whatever ICBC offers? Is it a factor that ICBC is a big fish in the small pond of personal injury? Today’s ICBC offer to settle case shows that not accepting an offer…
If ICBC hires a doctor to examine a claimant, the denial of the claim may be based on “junk science” and therefore can be challenged. Novelty is a measure of reliability which must be balanced against its effect on the mind of the trier of fact. The concept of ‘novel’ is used to distinguish evidence that…
ICBC, in this personal injury case, having been ordered to pay almost $400,000 in punitive damages for reprehensible conduct, wins a stay in the payment pending their appeal (Arsenovski v. Bodin,2016 BCCA 178). This ICBC injury case involved a car accident which occurred at the intersection of Nelson Avenue and Imperial Street in Burnaby. The claimant pedestrian was…
This was an assessment of the injury claimant’s bill of costs in a personal injury action that was settled at a mediation some three and a half months before the trial. The issue was whether it was reasonable to incur the cost of a vocational assessment when the claimant was already at the age of retirement…
ICBC still is unable to make reasonable offers to settle in many personal injury cases despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars updating their computer systems and firing over 250 mostly managers. The promise of “firm but fair” offer seems to have turned to “firmly unfair” thanks to ICBC. In the most recent case of Sebaa…
Although the claimant’s injuries were exacerbated as a result of chiropractic treatment this did not break the chain of causation. “The chain of causation will be broken where an intervening event, rather than the defendants’ conduct, is considered the proximate or legal cause of the subsequent injury. This principle, known as novus actus interveniens, recognizes that defendants…
Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (MTBI) can be difficult to diagnose after car accident. The Insurance Corporation of BC generally refuses to accept the existence of a MTBI and will fight these claims to the end. In this case ICBC hired Dr. Rehan Dost, Neurology. Dr. Dost was eager to assist the court in assessing the credibility of the claimant…
The government of BC may be preparing to back ICBC in an appeal of a $350,000 award against ICBC for malicious prosecution. Transportation Minister Todd Stone indicated that ICBC may be considering an appeal. This is in a case where employees of ICBC were found to be getting enjoyment out of causing difficulty to innocent accident victims. When…