Recently, our very own Brian Goldfinger made a special guest appearance on the Raptors Republic Podcast. You may know that Goldfinger Injury Lawyers is a sponsor of Raptors Republic, and Brian Goldfinger is a big fan of all of their hard work.
You can check out Brian Goldfinger’s appearance on the Raptors Republic Podcast here:
https://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2018/09/25/raptors-weekly-extra-podcast-the-chronicles-of-uros-slokar/
The focus of this Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog Post will be on the denial of Long Term Disability Claims.
Of the hundreds of thousands of Long Term Disability Claims which large insurers like Manulife, Great West Life, Sun Life, Desjardins, SSQ, Industrial Alliance etc. handle, why was YOURS singled out for denial?
You’re a good person.
You’ve worked hard at your job for years without taking much time off like some other co-workers who abuse the system.
You’ve paid LTD premiums for years without complaint or missing a premium payment.
So why me? Why was my claim denied and not the other guy who abused the system?
Why are “good people” always getting the short end of the stick?
I don’t have an answer as to why specifically your Long Term Disability claim was denied in particular; but rest assured; you’re not ALONE!
While it may seem like the vast majority of people you know who applied for long term disability, let me tell you that hundreds of thousands of claims go the other way and get denied.
It’s not uncommon for long term disability claims to get denied at first instance, and approved at a later date; or simply denied altogether.
The important thing is to maintain positive and maintain a level head (as best you can). Easier said than done when bills begin to pile up and the collection calls begin to flood in. But doing something drastic in desperate times is never a good idea.
This instalment of the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog is not your typical personal injury piece. Reason being, this has not been your typical week in the world of the law and politics in Ontario. As detailed below, this has been a historic week.
Earlier today, Doug Ford and his Conservative majority government enacted section 33 of the Charter, commonly referred to as the Notwithstanding Clause in order to uphold The Better Local Government Act.
The Better Local Government Act was passed by Premier Ford’s majority government to reduce the number of seats in the ongoing Toronto Municipal election from 47 seats, down to 25.
The Honourable Justice Belobaba ruled that Premier Ford’s Better Local Government Act was unconstitutional as it violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Premier Ford recalled legislature today and passed a resolution declaring that The Better Local Government Act would apply “notwithstanding” the Charter.
Essentially, Premier Ford used his supreme constitutional power to overrule the decision of a Judge to pass the legislation which the Judge had deemed to be unconstitutional.
Constitutional lawyers across Canada and legal academics rejoice. They haven’t seen so much CORAF action since the 1980’s.
Recently in the news, a Windsor Ontario doctor was disciplined for over prescribing opioid medication. His license to practice medicine was revoked. This was the first disciplinary case of its kind involving the over prescribing of opioid medication where the doctor lost his license to practice medicine.
Also recently, the government of British Columbia launched the first law suit of its kind against opioid manufacturers and distributors alleging that the drugs created more negatives and burdens for the health care industry than benefits.
The trend is that opioid medication is bad. Personal Injury lawyers see this trend on the front lines with respect to how their clients react to opioid medication. Times are certainly changing and medication trends are heading in a different direction. They are trending towards cannabis.
It used to be that smoking cannabis for chronic pain was taboo. Pot smokers were frowned upon by the Courts, insurers and jurors thinking that the smoker was masking their smoking habit just to get high. The disingenuous comment “I need to smoke pot for my pain” was very common and was sneered upon.
With the recent crack downs on opioid medication, and a better understanding of the potential harms which opioid medication can cause; more people (and doctors) are seeking out alternative remedies. Enter medical cannabis.
Fact: Goldfinger Injury Lawyers receives a spike in phone calls from prospective clients both during, and after the Labour Day Long Weekend.
Fact: The majority of these calls come from injured accident victims and their loved ones inquiring about their personal injury claims as a consequence of somebody’s negligence which took place over the long weekend.
Fact: The majority of these accidents and resulting injuries are avoidable. Often times, these injury claims arise on account of mental errors, errors in judgment, or just bad behaviour.
Here’s what you need to know heading in to the Labour Day Long Weekend from the perspective of a personal injury lawyer who has seen a few things…
Goldfinger Injury Lawyers handle methadone overdose cases, and other cases involving pharmacist negligence.
You might ask: how can this ever happen?
If someone has a prescription, it gets filled with the right drug and the right dosage; and that should be the end of it.
But mistakes happen. And they happen more than you think.
And when those mistakes happen, people can get really sick, or even worse, die.
There is a very negative stigma surrounding overdose cases. People who take illegal drugs are frowned upon. The need for methadone to manage a pre-existing addiction problem has been stigmatized.
This is why coming forward is no easy task. Doctors, family members, nurses and members of the general public often have no sympathy, empathy or understanding for what these people are going through.
Last week’s entry of the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog entitled “How Ontario Car Accident Cases and Pain and Suffering awards work in a Nutshell“ received resounding positive feedback from our readers. They appreciated how complicated legal terms and concepts were broken down in easy to understand English. This is something our law firm prides itself on.
We understand that most of our clients are NOT sophisticated lawyers with years and years of technical legal training. Most of our clients are everyday people, who have not studied law.
We do our best to make things simple to understand. Why should a car accident case, or long term disability case be spoken about like it’s rocket science? The more our clients understand, the better the lawyer-client relationship.
In that vein, we continue with our “nutshell series“. This installment will focus on how Long Term Disability cases work; along with some of the most commonly asked questions about LTD cases from our clients. If you require more information about long term disability cases, please don’t hesitate to contact Goldfinger Injury Lawyers toll free at 1-877-730-1777 or at info@goldfingerlaw.com for your free and confidential consultation.
In law school, lawyers are taught to sue parties with deep pockets.
Suing a Defendant who is without assets will net you a limited or a nil return. You can’t get blood from a stone.
Understanding this concept is important to understanding how car accident cases work in Ontario. But there is much more than meets the eye.
In this “nutshell” series of the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog, we take a quick examination of how exactly car accident cases w0rk in Ontario, and what to expect.
Ontario has a very strange system of car insurance. When explained to a lay person, Ontario’s no fault accident benefit and tort system for car accident claims sounds backwards:
*UPDATED RELEASE (July 31, 2018)
Brian Goldfinger’s Legal Advertising Case Concluded
TORONTO: A resolution reached on June 20, 2018 between lawyer Brian Goldfinger and the regulator of Ontario’s legal profession has resulted in new case law that will aid lawyers in navigating the rules that govern lawyer advertising.
A resolution agreement that was initially presented to a panel of adjudicators at the Law Society of Ontario Tribunal on June 20, 2018, stated that some of Mr. Goldfinger’s advertising constituted “misconduct” under the Law Society’s rules, but that it was neither dishonest nor intentionally deceptive.
The purpose of this entry of the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog is to focus on a rather long personal injury case called Davies v. The Corporation of the Municipality of Clarington.
This is the case about a Via Trail derailment on what should have been a routine trip from Toronto to Montreal on November 23, 1999.
100+ passengers claimed injuries by way of class action.
Liability was sorted out by way of class action by way of trial in 2007.
But what wasn’t sorted out was the quantification of damages for one injured passenger; Christopher Zuber. Injuries, causation and the quantification of damages was the focus of this trial.
Mr. Zuber’s personal injury case in its entirety lasted around 17 years.
The trial took around 26 weeks (approximately 107 days to complete). It is believed this was the longest single personal injury jury trial in Ontario Court history (but we have no real concrete stats on it).
Here are some comments from the Honourable Justice Edwards about this case which speak for themselves on what it takes to suceed in a personal injury case, along with the state of modern personal injury litigation in Ontario. These comments are worth noting for any personal injury lawyer, or for any member of the general public with an active personal injury case on the go in Ontario. The comments of the Honourable Justice Edwards are also important to understanding how personal injury cases work, and are assessed in Ontario. Keep in mind, these are direct quotes from the Judge in this decision.
Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog