When making an offer to settle a personal injury case with ICBC it is important serve the offer to settle on all parties of record. In BC Personal injury cases there are usually two main claims that need to be settled: tort and Part VII. The tort claim is the negligence claim against the at…
After a car accident, a mild traumatic brain injury case usually relies heavily on the credibility of the claimant. With a normal MRI and no objective signs of injury, the court must rely on the credibility and reliability of the claimant and the strength of any corroborating evidence. The following appeal of a Brain Injury…
It is my experience as a lawyer representing car accident victims that ICBC and other insurance companies regularly deny all the facts alleged by an injury claimant in a lawsuit with little or no explanation. This type of response to a civil claim appears to no longer suffice as adequate pleadings in British Columbia. In fact…
A new standard for settlement proposals and settlement agreements has been set by the BC Court of Appeal . In a dispute over whether a family law case was settled the court required the trial judge to analyze the evidence of the settlement agreement in light of all the material facts to determine the entire scope of…
In this post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) personal injury case the Claimant was driving along Como Lake Road in Coquitlam when a van hit into the side of his vehicle. The other driver admitted liability, but disputed that the car accident induced PTSD in the claimant (Kim v. Khaw,2014 BCSC 2221). In many ICBC injury claims the insurance…
The personal injury case I review involved a low velocity motor vehicle accident on the Fraser Highway in which the Judge concluded that no injury had been established (2014 BCSC 2135) . The Claimant had a history of addiction, abused both street and prescription narcotics, endured a catastrophic industrial accident and significant injuries prior to the…
After a car accident the injured expect ICBC to act honestly when administrating accident insurance benefits under the universal auto insurance coverage. However the law in Canada has never imposed a duty on the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia to perform the terms of the contract of insurance honestly, until now. In the ground breaking…
This was an appeal from a personal injury case apportioning 60% of the liability for a motor vehicle accident to the injury claimant. The car accident occurred on the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge on the Trans-Canada Highway between Vancouver and North Vancouver (Langille v. Marchant, 2014 BCCA 430). The claimant rear-ended a vehicle after passing the crest on…
In British Columbia reporting a motor vehicle accident is different than anywhere else in Canada. The Insurance Corporation of BC, ICBC, is the only insurance company in the Province that is permitted, upon notice, to provide accident benefits to people injured in motor vehicle accidents. As a personal injury lawyer in Vancouver since 1995 my…
This personal injury claimant was found to have exaggerated the extent of her car accident related symptoms and failed to distinguish between her accident-related injuries and the effect on her life by her prior chronic neck and back pain (Ahmadi v. West, 2014 BCSC 2050). The ICBC injury claimant was injured in a motor vehicle accident…