Formal offers to settle in personal injury cases, including ICBC, filed in the Supreme Court are regulated by the Supreme Court Rules. Rule 9-1 is very specific about what is considered an offer to settle. An “offer to settle” is an offer that: (i) is made in writing by a party to a proceeding, (ii) has been…
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…
Innocent car accident victims must now face the prospect of a court ordered medical examination conducted by doctors that are potentially unfair, impartial, not credible and not objective. In a stunning Masters decision of the Supreme Court requiring an ICBC claimant to attend a medical exam, the Master stated, “Questions of fairness, partiality, credibility, and…
Another walloping to the auto insurer ICBC as they seem to continually refuse to make reasonable offers of settlement. The Court has awarded $411,158.00 after a 2 week trial in Vancouver to a claimant involved in a motor vehicle accident while driving on Highway 1 near Kamloops, B.C. (Biefeld v. Neetz,2016 BCSC 689). As a result…
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…
ICBC is now forced to pay double costs on behalf of their insured after failing to accept several reasonable offers to settle this personal injury claim. ICBC’s unreasonable conduct forced this claimant to pursue this car accident litigation for over 10 years to obtain an award of over $700,000.00 from the court for soft tissue injuries to her…
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).…
In this personal injury case ICBC made an application to force the claimant to sign authorizations for the production of certain medical records (Gee v. Basra,2015 BCSC 2495) . The order sought was: That within seven days of the date of this order the plaintiff do provide to counsel for the defendants, or alternatively do provide…
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…
ICBC insured defendants have lost a bold application to name a family doctor for negligent treatment in this multiple car accident lawsuit (Jack v. Kendrick,2015 BCSC 1872). The claim is for injuries sustained in three separate motor vehicle accidents and the allegation was that the family doctor prescribed negligently large doses of opiates. In order for ICBC to obtain…