ICBC Required to Pay Lost Wages for Delayed Total Disability

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…

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Personal Health Information for All British Columbian’s Disclosed to Tobacco Company

Personal Injury lawyers should know that the Court of Appeal has allowed the Information and Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia to challenge an order that allows the tobacco company Philip Morris International Inc. access to a number of government databases containing personal healthcare information. The central issue on appeal will be whether the chambers judge erred in not…

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ICBC Refuses to Pay Punitive Damage Award before Appeal

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…

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Exaggerating the Impact- Personal Injury Case Raised from the Dead

  In a dramatic turn-around the Court of Appeal has allowed the appeal and set aside the order below dismissing this personal injury case . The car accident was at a very low speed and resulted in only approximately $100 in damage to the bumper of the claimant’s van. The defendant’s car was behind the claimant’s van in…

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Left Hand Turning Vehicle 60% at Fault says Court of Appeal

This car accident occurred while the claimant was making a left turn from Lougheed Highway onto Kanaka Way  in Maple Ridge, BC. This was an appeal from an order made apportioning 60% of the fault for the accident to the claimant, and 40% of the fault to the respondent, a through driver (Pirie v. Skantz,2016 BCCA 70).…

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$600,000 Injury Award Upheld- No Adverse Inference or Failure to Mitigate

Even if an injury claimant wins at trial in an ICBC injury claim, defendant’s have a right of appeal.  In this case even though the defendant lost at trial they alleged that the trial judge was wrong and should have blamed the claimant for her own injuries (failure to mitigate) and should have drawn an adverse…

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Judge Cannot Change Masters Costs Award in Personal Injury Case

A Supreme Court Master refused to force this injury claimant to submit to an ICBC medical examination on two separate occasions and the Master awarded her costs.  The judge made a substantial award of damages in this car accident injury case and awarded the claimant  to costs at Scale B but denied her costs of defending these two…

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Most Important Personal Injury Cases of 2015

Developments in personal injury law for 2015 are exciting and range from the new and approved claim of moral injury to new limits on sanctions that can be leveled against injury claimants. ICBC claimants that fail to accept a reasonable offer no longer have to pay double costs and Masters cannot impose financially crippling sanctions against claimants  in the document…

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ICBC Must Pay Benefits Despite Prior Neck and Back Pain

This ICBC injury insurance Appeal case concerned the nature of the claim for injury benefits under Part 7 of the Insurance  Regulations and the interpretation of s. 96(f) of the Regulation when a claimant has a pre-existing condition . The case stands for the proposition that ICBC must prove that but for the pre-existing condition, the Claimant would not have become totally disabled(Kozhikhov…

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$250,000 Loss of Earning Capacity Award in Rear End Accident Upheld

The Court Appeal has made it clear in this personal injury case that an award for loss of future earning capacity reflects the exercise of judgment framed by clearly articulated factual findings. To require the trial judge to say more than he did in this case would be to impose an impossible burden on trial judges (Fadai…

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