In the past year, there have been an unusual number of ICBC cases that have proceeded to trial. As a result, an incredible number of trials have been postponed in the British Columbia Supreme Court as a result. This is devastating to injured claimants who had been waiting years to resolve their claims and who…
David Eby and his NDP government have been very vocal about ICBC’s financial problems. Instead of making changes to ICBC’s management who are responsible for its policies and procedures that are clearly not working, the changes made are directed at injured claimants by eroding their rights. Shouldn’t the ICBC executive who are responsible for how…
In this case review the injury claimant was rear-ended in a car accident and claimed a loss of $500,000 due to her injury. The defendants admitted liability and called for a jury trial. About two months before the jury trial the defendants made an offer to settle the case for $50,000 plus taxable costs and disbursements. Two weeks before…
In awarding this personal injury claimant double costs for beating the pre-trial offer of settlement, the Supreme Court has articulated 5 key principles to consider if you beat an offer to settle. The defendant insurer State Farm cancelled a mediation because their view was that mediation to settle the car accident claim had little chance of…
If an offer to settle a personal injury claim with ICBC is not in the proper form and not served on all the parties of record, the court can deny costs even if the offer is beat- Granja v. Jozsef, 2017 BCSC 1087. The injury claimant offered to settle his case for $70,000 before trial. ICBC refused…
In complicated civil litigation there may often be multiple orders of the court, some in favour of a litigant and some against. All the while offers to settle are being exchanged privately. What does it mean by the end of a trial to beat an offer to settle and be “substantially successful”? The Court of Appeal…
In this ICBC personal injury case the claimant was awarded $622,500 after she was injured by a vehicle that turned left across the path of her vehicle. The claimant had however made an offer to settle to ICBC one week before the trial for $315,000 plus costs and disbursements, which was rejected. The claimant was therefore entitled to an…
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…
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…
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…