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…
In this offer to settle slip and fall case the court used its discretion and allowed a claimant that was found 50 % at fault to recover 65% of her costs. The claimant was also awarded double costs after the insurance comany refused to accept a reasonable offer of settlement almost a month before trial…
This significant unanimous decision has effectively done away with double costs for ICBC and other disability insurance companies in civil claims where the plaintiff obtains an award for less than an offer to settle (C.P. v. RBC Life Insurance Company, 2015 BCCA 30). The important issue in this BC Court of Appeal case was the availability of double costs…
In this motor vehicle accident injury case the claimant offered to settle for $65,000.00 more than two weeks before trial and that offer was rejected. The insurance Corporation of British Columbia, ICBC, is the mandatory third party insurer for all BC drivers and in this case the defendant was ordered to pay over $193,500 plus double…
This is a review of an award of double costs against an ICBC insured for failure to accept a reasonable offer of settlement( J.D. v. Chandra,2014 BCSC 1272) . This successful personal injury claimant offered to settle her ICBC case for $200,000 after attending a Judicial Settlement Conference. The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, ICBC, rejected the…
In this offer to settle a personal injury case Judge Funt has done away with the old rule against all-inclusive offers to settle. That is to say the Judge entertained an $250,000 all-inclusive pre-trial offer of the defendant when awarding double costs to the defendant, changing the law and overturning our Court of Appeal in Helm v. Pattie(1998),…
The personal injury award following a 25 day trial in this ICBC gets double costs case(Minhas v. Sartor,2014 BCSC 47) was $76,653.00, much less than the $3 million sought by the claimant and the $275,000 offered by ICBC before trial. The judge, in one of the first times in BC legal history, has awarded ICBC…
The claimant in this reasonable offer personal injury case(Gulbrandsen v. Mohr,2013 BCSC 1481) was a passenger in a car accident. The Judge accepted the claimant was injured in the accident awarding her $28,000.0 in damages, but found that she was not a trustworthy witness. Her evidence about lost time at work was vague and she had…