Published on:

By

Chronic Pain is a real thing.

But just because it’s real, doesn’t mean it’s easy to prove in a personal injury case.

In fact, chronic pain cases are probably the most difficult types of injuries which personal injury lawyers have to prove on behalf of their clients.

But, why are chronic pain cases so difficult?

That’s an easy answer once you know how personal injury cases work.

Most people who are unfamiliar with the Courts, and how personal injury cases work would believe that chronic pain cases are easy. It would entail having a Plaintiff take the stand, and s/he can explain the the Judge and Jury that they are in extreme pain and cannot function. Taking things one step further, the Plaintiff would then have the power to take the Judge and Jury home with them, to see how difficult it is for them to manage their daily activities. The Judge and Jury would sleep over, and watch how hard it is for the Plaintiff to fall asleep, get out of bed in the morning, shower, get dressed, brush their teeth, prepare meals, wash the dishes, take out the trash, clean the house etc.

This is not how Courts work. You cannot bring the Judge and Jury home with you to see how hard life has become since the accident.

The Plaintiff gets one shot on the stand. When they take the stand, they have to articulate their pain in such a way to convince a Judge and Jury to accept their story such that they ultimately make a ruling in their favour. If a Plaintiff does not present as credible, reliable or likeable, chances are that the Judge and Jury will not accept their story (even if that story is the truth!). Not only that, if a Plaintiff is not able to properly explain their pain, suffering and the difficulties that they have with their day to day activities (even if this is completely legitimate), a Judge and Jury might still have a hard time finding in their favour. That means that it’s not always about what’s being said, but sometimes it’s also about how it’s being said, and how that message if being received by a Judge and Jury.

Continue reading →

Published on:

By

What is the most valuable card in your wallet?

Is it your driver’s license? Probably not as it just allows you to drive, and not everyone owns or has access to car. A driver’s license can’t buy you food either.

Is it your credit card? Your credit card can help you buy food, but there are limits on how much you can buy on it.

How about your debit card? Same answer as above, except you aren’t purchasing on credit. Rather, the card is only as good as your bank balance.

How about your Costco Membership Card? Great card. You’ll have access to a lot of stuff at reasonable prices, but certainly not the most valuable card in your wallet.

The most valuable card for all Canadians is their health card. When a Canadian need to go and see a doctor, they won’t see a bill in return for the doctor’s services. If a Canadian is hurt, or injured, or has some sort of medical emergency and they require surgery accompanied by a lengthy stay in hospital; there won’t be any bill for that stay which they ever see. The cost of those medical services, food etc. is very very expensive. You can argue about the quality of services, or the timeliness of those medical services all you want. The reality is that there are no monetary limits on your OHIP Healthcare card. Once the medical treatment has been done, the patient doesn’t see any bill.

But there is one exception. Can you guess what it is, and how it relates to personal injury law?

Continue reading →

Published on:

By

Long Term Disability cases may sound simple and straight forward. But they aren’t.

When claimants think of what a Court can award them in a long term disability lawsuit, their expectations don’t meet the reality of what the law can do.

For example, claimants believe that a Judge can award them any amount for damages under the sun in the event that their long term disability benefits have been wrongly denied, or terminated. Claimants may pick a number out of their head which sounds large and reasonable in their eyes to compensate them for their losses. But this is simply not how long term disability cases; nor is it how Courts quantify losses for long term disability cases.

There is a lot of math which goes behind the loss quantification in long term disability cases. This means that a Judge will not pick a number out of his/her pocket to compensate a Plaintiff. This is different than a car accident case where a Court has to quantify a Plaintiff’s general damages claim (a claim for pain and suffering). In those tort cases, there is often a range of damages which is presented by the Plaintiff personal injury lawyer; along with a range of damages presented by the lawyer for the insurance company defending the claim. You will find that the range of damages presented by the Plaintiff personal injury lawyer will be higher than the range of damages presented by the lawyer for the defendant insurance company. The Judge will then make an assessment of those damages based on the law presented and the facts of the case, and decide on a figure which s/he believes best fits the case they are deciding.

This sort of exercise does not really happen in a long term disability case.

Why is that?

Continue reading →

Published on:

By

I’m a Toronto Raptors Fan. I’ve been a fan since day 1. Before the Raptors came to Toronto, I was, and remain, a big fan of the game of basketball.

But, if I’m being honest, ever since the Tampa Tank 2020-21, the Toronto Raptors have been hard to watch.

Their brand of basketball, along with the teams they’ve assembled haven’t been easy on the eyes. Most of the players on their rosters since that time aren’t here anymore. Whether that was by design (trade, lost to free agency), or more so because the players they’ve brought in just aren’t good enough to play in the NBA in a meaningful way. The has been no roster continuity.

The roster turnover from the past 4 years has been huge in a bad way. There have been a lot of players they’ve brought in who simply aren’t in the NBA anymore. That should tell you something about the talent they’ve attracted and invested in. It’s been poor.

Yet, the organization has been charging a premium price to the fan base. When the organization charges a premium price, you would expect have a premium product delivered in return. Unfortunately, this has not been the case in recent years. It’s no coincidence I feel this way. The largest loss measured by point differential in Raptors History took place just last season in a 133-85 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves. That’s a 48 point margin of defeat.

If you dive deeper into those all time loss stats, 5 of top 11 (45%) of the Raptors worst losses when looking at point differential have come since 2021-2022! This means that since the 2021-2022 season, Raptor fans have seen 45% of the worst games by point differential played in Raptor history! That’s astounding! This is a disproportionately high number of bad games over such a short period of time.

Continue reading →

Published on:

By

In the United States, they call them depositions.

In Ontario, they are referred to as Examinations for Discovery, or Discoveries, or Discovery.

Examinations for Discovery take place under oath. That means that the deponent has to swear, or affirm, that they will tell the truth (not lie!).

They are an opportunity for the other side to ask questions about your case. They will ask all sort of questions about you as well. Some questions may be relevant to your case. Other questions may not appear to be relevant, but sometimes are. It’s best to trust you lawyer to determine which questions you ought to answer, and which questions you ought to refuse to answer. In the event that there’s a disagreement about what’s relevant, and what’s not relevant, the lawyers will identify the question as a “refusal“. It then would be up to a Judge to decide whether or not the question needs to be answered, and whether or not the deponent would need to re-attend at discovery based on the answer to the question refused. This is a common occurrence at Examinations for Discovery. Lawyers tend to agree to disagree, and move on in order to complete the Examination for Discovery; and then argue about the refusals later. It makes no sense to spend all day and waste time arguing refusals at the discovery itself when a Judge will ultimately have the final say in terms of whether or not the question needs to be answered and addressed or not.

Continue reading →

Published on:

By

It’s best to get started with your personal injury case sooner rather than later.

It makes no sense to wait around. I have yet to hear a viable excuse as to why a Plaintiff waited to retain a personal injury lawyer and start their case.

I can contemplate a scenario where a seriously injured accident victim would have to wait to start their personal injury case. That scenario exists where the Plaintiff is so injured that they can’t use a phone or internet to reach out to a personal injury lawyer. A Plaintiff could be in a coma, (like a medically educed coma) following a serious accident. Where a Plaintiff isn’t conscious, or simply too injured to get his/her claim started, then a delay would make a bit of sense. Still, the law doesn’t care. I haven’t seen a case where a Plaintiff is in a coma for 2 years from the date of their accident. That doesn’t really happen. 2 years is a very long time to be left in a coma following an accident. During that long period of time, the accident victim would likely have a Power of Attorney appointed to make decisions. If there is no Power of Attorney, or next of kin, it’s likely that the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee would get involved in order to protect the rights and the interests of the comatose accident victim.

Continue reading →

Published on:

By

Personal injury law in complicated.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

But unfortunately, it is.

If you are hurt, or injured on the jobsite, you would think that you could retain a personal injury lawyer and sue. The lawsuit might likely have to be against your employer on account of their negligence, or providing an unsafe work environment. This would make sense and seems like a very logical approach.

But that’s not the way the law works.

In the vast majority of cases, workers cannot sue their employers for a workplace injury. In the majority of cases, the injured party will have to make a claim through the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB). Even if the injured party retains a personal injury lawyer, and files a claim against their employer in Superior Court, that claim will likely be dismissed because the Plaintiff does not have the right to sue. They must have gone through WSIB.

A Plaintiff cannot have both a WSIB Claim, and a personal injury lawsuit. In the majority of cases, the Plaintiff does not have a choice. They MUST go through WSIB.

Continue reading →

Published on:

By

Movies get us thinking that video cameras are everywhere, and that they capture everything. Think of your favourite crime show, or crime movie. There’s usually footage of a bad guy caught on camera in the act which is used in some way, shape or form, to move the plot along.

As an experienced personal injury lawyer, I can tell you that the way things work on TV are far from how things work in reality and inside of a Courtroom.

Cameras are everywhere, but they don’t always work the way you might think

Not all cameras are created equal. Some capture remarkably high quality footage which is of great help to a personal injury lawyer. Other cameras are able to track moving people or objects which is also very helpful to a personal injury lawyer. Other cameras capture pictures which are so terrible that they are unusable. Other cameras capture footage which automatically gets destroyed after a predetermined period of time (like 48hrs). If the footage is not preserved before it gets automatically destroyed, it’s lost forever. Some cameras can only record in daylight, so anything that happens at night is unusable. Other cameras don’t even work at all because they’re broken, or simply unconnected or have no power. Some cameras are “dummy cameras” meant to deter, instead of record. If you’re able to secure good and usable footage for a personal injury case, that’s wonderful. The footage will speak for itself. A Judge and Jury will be able to make up their own minds of what happened after reviewing the video footage. But don’t assume that just because there are cameras around, that they will produce useful footage. Often times, the footage is not very clear at all. You would be amazed the amount of times in a personal injury case that the lawyers track down the footage, only to find out that the camera was pointed metres short so the incident took place off screen.

Continue reading →

Published on:

By

Cases can settle in a lot of different ways.

They can settle minutes before trial in a Courtroom.

They can settle by email late at night.

They can settle a day after a long mediation which failed because a party had a change of heart.

There’s no predetermined formula as to how cases settle outside of Court. Personal injury lawyers, and defence lawyers have many tools at their disposal to achieving a settlement, if that’s the desired result for their client.

One of the most effective, and most widely accepted tools is mediation.

Mediation is a party centred method of dispute resolution which takes place in a less formal environment than a traditional courtroom. It’s basically a really fancy legal word for a meeting with all of the decision makers to focus on getting the case settled. What’s nice about mediation is that during the mediation, all of the lawyers and adjusters are focusing (or are supposed to be focusing!) on that one particular file. That’s a very good thing considering this singular focus on one specific case for an extended period of time doesn’t happen all too often for lawyers. They often jump from case, to case, to case throughout the course of a day.

There are lots of other benefits to mediation which I won’t go into too much detail about, but here are a few for quick reference:

  • It’s less expensive than going to trial
  • It’s faster than going to trial. You can get a mediation date much faster than you can secure trial dates.
  • Completing a mediation is faster than running a personal injury trial.
  • It’s private and confidential. Nothing said at mediation can, or will be held against any of the parties. That means that the discussions and offers are without prejudice.
  • The result at mediation is instantaneous following the conclusion of mediation compared to completing a trial and waiting for the Judge’s reasons which may take weeks, or months, to be released.
  • The end result of mediation (settlement or failed mediation) cannot be appealed. A trial verdict can be appealed, which adds further cost and delay to the conclusion of the case.
  • All of the decision makers are in the room so that the parties get to decide their destiny. This provides the parties with a certainty of outcome, rather than leaving things to chance in the hands of a Judge or Jury

Continue reading →

Published on:

By

When we think of a dog attack, we tend to think that a dog bit another person. But this is not always the case. There are viable dog attack cases when a dog does not actually bite another person.

The dog owner is vicariously liable for the actions of his or her dog. This includes all aggressive behaviour which includes bitting, but includes all other forms of behaviour as well.

The Dog Owner’s Liability Act set forth clear language which does not limit liability to bitting alone:

Proceedings against owner of dog

4 (1) A proceeding may be commenced in the Ontario Court of Justice against an owner of a dog if it is alleged that,

(b)  the dog has behaved in a manner that poses a menace to the safety of persons or domestic animals; or

(c)  the owner did not exercise reasonable precautions to prevent the dog from,

(ii)  behaving in a manner that poses a menace to the safety of persons or domestic animals.  2005, c. 2, s. 1 (6).

There is no mention in the language above which makes reference to bitting. Rather, the behaviour is described as “behaved in a manner that poses a menace to the safety of persons” or such that “the owner did not exercise reasonable precautions to prevent the dog from behaving in a manner that poses a menace to the safety of persons or domestic animals“.  There is wide discretion for the Court to interpret this sort of behaviour which clearly will not be limited to bitting alone. It can be any other behaviour deemed to pose a menace to the safety of another person or domestic animal.

Continue reading →

OTLA American Association for Justice Lexpert Ranked Lawyer
Contact Information
Toronto Office
167 Sheppard Ave W
Toronto, ON M2N 1M9
Phone: (416) 730-1777 Toll Free: (877) 730-1777 Fax: (416) 730-0955
London Meeting Office
341 Talbot St
London, ON N6A 2R5
Toll Free: (877) 730-1777
Peterborough Meeting Office
420 George St N #313
Peterborough, ON K9H 3R5
Toll Free: (877) 730-1777
Kitchener Meeting Office
290 King St E
Kitchener, ON N2G 2L3
Toll Free: (877) 730-1777
Owen Sound Meeting Office
1051 2nd Ave E
Owen Sound, ON N4K 2H8
Toll Free: (877) 730-1777

Past results are not indicative of future results.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Please do not include any confidential or sensitive information in a contact form, text message, or voicemail. The contact form sends information by non-encrypted email, which is not secure. Submitting a contact form, sending a text message, making a phone call, or leaving a voicemail does not create an attorney-client relationship.

Copyright © 2024, Goldfinger Law
JUSTIA Law Firm Blog Design