Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog
This week, the Provincial Government of Alberta will announce that people will no longer be able to sue for personal injuries arising from a car accident. I hate seeing when governments take away the rights of innocent people to best suit their corporate overlords.
This dramatic change to the law means innocent accident victims won’t be able to sue for personal injuries against:
- Drunk Drivers
- Distracted Drivers
- Drugged Up Drivers
- Incapacitated Drivers
- Careless Drivers
- Drivers too high to operate a vehicle
- Driving driving illegally without a license
- Grossly negligent drivers
- Drag Racers
- Stunt Drivers
- Criminals who have stolen a car and who operate their vehicle like it’s Grand Theft Auto causing a serious collision and life threatening injuries. See the serious collision which took place on November 18, 2024 at Bathurst and Wilson in North York where a driver on bail operating a stolen vehicle hit a TTC Bus, injuring 9 innocent individuals.
- Defendants who drive their vehicles so poorly, and so negligently, that they cause death to innocent people who are simply in the wrong place, at the wrong time
- Anyone else who acts a fool behind then wheel and causes injuries to another innocent person
The arguments for eliminating the right to sue for personal injuries are weak, if not laughable.
It’s said the car insurance premiums are too high. The cost of insuring people has increased so much that insurance companies are not making enough money to thrive.
Because insurers aren’t making enough money, they need to find ways to become more profitable.
Instead of looking at themselves; and taking accountability for their own governance; they seek to blame their problems on others. This is an incredibly juvenile and irresponsible approach; yet it has worked!
Insurers have blamed their alleged reduced profitability on anyone but themselves, including but not limited to:
- Personal Injury Lawyers
- Increased amount of car accidents
- Increased Theft
- Increased Fraud
- Bad Weather causing more damage claims
- Higher cost to repair vehicles
- Bad Court Decisions
- Increased amount of car accident claims which go to litigation (blaming the personal injury lawyers again)
- Increased costs for therapy and rehabilitation
Are insurance companies supposed to be sheltered from inflation or increased operating costs? Are they also supposed to be immune to changing economic times? Of course not! Yet, they act and speak as if they are entitled to such privileges . It’s a classic case of hard times for thee; but not for me.
By taking away the right for an accident victim to seek compensation for his/her injuries from a Judge; insurers stand to gain lots of money by not having to pay lawyers, adjusters, or any further awards.
Instead, insurers will pay a capped rate set on a schedule based on what they deem to be reasonable and necessary. In doing so, they get to act as Judge, Jury and Executioner on any injury or economic claims arising from a car accident; regardless of whose fault it was or how bad the injuries are.
It sounds like the proposed system would be similar to how WSIB currently works in Ontario. How that system currently works is a mess. If you get hurt on the job, good luck getting the support or benefits which you need. You will get something. What that something is depends on the nature of your injuries and where they fall on their pre-determined guidelines; along with what the WSIB’s hired gun medical experts have to say.
Even more insane is that in Alberta, after the government has eliminated the right to sue; the first relief will be known to the car insurers and NOT to the public! The government will first allow auto insurers to raise premiums by substantially more than the 3.7 per cent rate cap it imposed this year! This way, car insurers can be at least 3.7% more profitable (if not more when accounting for the reforms in place). This means that the public will get hurt twice. They will pay at least 3.7% more in car insurance premiums, and they will also have lost their rights to claim compensation for their injuries arsing from a car accident! How does this trade off make any sense to any right thinking person or government? How is this equitable or good for the public? The only party which wins in this legal reform are the insurance companies.
The insurance industry will try to create the narrative that the savings will be passed along to the consumer in the form of reduced car insurance premiums. I call shenanigans on this promise. Our personal injury lawyers have seen the same promises from the insurance industry here. Cut after cut to our accident benefit system, combined with increased deductibles for pain and suffering claims have not lead to any substantial rate reductions. Ontarians are paying more for car insurance, and receiving less in the form of benefits and potential compensation. All of those savings to the car insurers have NOT been passed along to the consumer. Instead, they have been used to line the pockets of insurers in order to increase their profitability.
If you were to tell any business that they cannot sue after they have been wronged, or caused economic damage, people would say that was undemocratic and punitive. It would sound as if you were living in a totalitarian state. Certainly not a Western Democratic Society. Yet, this is what’s happening in Alberta; which is widely viewed as a more libertarian/free province where governments are told to stay out of private matters; or matters altogether.
The calculated charade that consumers will benefit from this arrangement is a carefully orchestrated plan by insurers to make more money. If governments truly cared about doing the right thing, they would not agree to eliminating the right of innocent accident victims to claim compensation in Court in car accident cases. What’s next? Slip and fall cases? Dog bite cases? How about fire loss or water damage claims? How about eliminating civil courts altogether and letting an AI algorithm adjudicate and quantify damages; which are maxed out to a cap of $5,000. I can assure you that this sort of thing would never happen to corporate Canada over business deals gone bad. Imagine telling a publicly traded Canadian Company that they could not claim compensation for their losses in civil court from an insurance company on an insurance claim. It would never happen.
