This 93 year old personal injury claimant completely ignored medical advice that he not travel on public transportation unassisted and injured his right shoulder after trying to exit a moving bus (Bideci v. Neuhold, 2014 BCSC 542). There is however prima facie negligence against public carriers and the driver was found 2/3 at fault for not looking carefully…
The court awarded more than $300,000.00 to this heavy duty mechanic that suffered injuries in two car accidents (Hong v. Wagner,2014 BCSC 373). Despite considerable concern surrounding the reliability and credibility of the claimant’s testimony the medical evidence established that the claimant has a permanent partial disability and will suffer from shoulder pain in the future.…
Personal injury lawyers in BC will want to take note that the Court of Appeal has reversed an award of trial costs as the judge was clearly wrong in finding that the defendants were successful. (Loft v. Nat,2014 BCCA 108). The Court of Appeal makes it clear that obtaining less money than what was requested…
Pain and suffering after a car accident is often claimed by personal injury lawyers for clients but can the award be reduced if the claimant fails to take medical marijuana? The Supreme Court of BC said the injury claimant’s personal injury award should not be reduced for failing to take medical cannabis (Glesby v. MacMillian,2014 BCSC 334).…
In this personal injury rollerblading case(Chabot v. Chaube,2014 BCSC 300) The claimant was not obliged to remove her inline skates to cross at a marked crosswalk but, having chosen to skate across the crosswalk, she was required to take reasonable precautions for her own safety considering her speed and visibility. Rollerblading within a marked crosswalk is not…
After a car accident injury there is a big difference between a loss that “may” occur in the future and one in which there is a “real possibility”. Personal injury lawyers have long been trying to put some logic to this distinction and now the following Court of Appeal case introduces “realistic possibility” (Kim v. Morier, 2014…
The medical consensus was that the car accident victim had pre-existing degenerative changes of the lumbar spine which pre-dated the two motor vehicle accidents in question. The issue was to what extent the injury claimant may have suffered chronic low back pain despite the car accidents (Hoy v. Williams,2014 BCSC 234)The weight of medical opinion…
This personal injury claimant suffered soft tissue injuries in a car accident which developed into pain disorder. The issue at trial was the assessment of damages, and the first jury awarded her $528,000.00. This amount was overturned on appeal creating a a new “Reliable Hearsay Test” in personal injury cases. The second jury awarded her only…
In this failure to mitigate personal injury case(Maltese v. Pratap,2014 BCSC 18) the car accident occurred on Hastings Street in Burnaby after the claimant was driving home from a Vancouver Canucks hockey game. Another vehicle failed to stop and struck the passenger side of the claimant’s vehicle in a T-bone fashion. The Claimant suffered neck and lower…
In this loss of business personal injury case (Harshenin v. MacLeod,2013 BCSC 2219) the injury claimant was injured in a rear-end collision at the intersection on Highway 3A near Castlegar, British Columbia. The injury claimant was asking for pain and suffering compensation of $100,000, past wage loss of $200,000, future loss of wages of $120,000, out of…