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It has been snowy.

It has been slushy.

It has been drizzly.

It has been icy.

It has been icky.

It has been yucky.

It has been dreary.

It has been mucky.

How else would you describe slip and fall season? Few people in Ontario describe the weather in January as hot, humid and hazy, with blue skies and plenty of sunshine. It’s quite the opposite. The days are short. It seems like we haven’t seen the sun shine in weeks. It’s cold, damp, slippery, and dark.

Around this time of year, our law firm sees an uptick in slip and fall, and trip and fall cases. That’s not to say that slip and fall cases don’t happen year round. It’s just to say that in the winter months we see a spike in these sort of cases. Justifiably so. There’s no ice and better visibility in the spring and summer months. Ontario in the winter is full of icy, slush and snow related hazards.

In this instalment of the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog, we would like to examine the critical importance which liability plays for a slip and fall, or a trip and fall case.

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A lot of people talk about what it’s like to be a personal injury lawyer, and how the courts work for hearing personal injury cases.

But few explore what it’s like to be a client in a personal injury case; and what to expect, and how to best go through the process. The purpose of today’s instalment of the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog is to exactly that. It’s our hope that these tips will give you some best practices to make the journey as smooth as possible; and to ensure a positive outcome for your personal injury case.

Tip #1: Lower your expectations. This tip applies both for the duration of your case, and the value of your case. The cold, hard truth is that your case, much like all personal injury cases across Ontario take a very long time to complete. The wheels of justice turn slowly, and personal injury cases are no exception. Insurance companies don’t make a profit throwing money at all cases which cross their desks. They will grind you out and wait you out. But it’s not just insurers which contribute to delays. The Courts aren’t any help either when it comes to personal injury cases. The Courts are under funded, and over worked. They have very limited resources, for a volume of cases which gets bigger and bigger year after year. The Courts are expected to do more work, with less resources. Those limited resources are shifted away from the civil justice system (where personal injury cases are heard), and have been transferred to criminal courts. This is a recipe for disaster when it comes to having a personal injury case heard in a reasonable period of time.

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We are soon turning the page on 2023, and heading into 2024.

Not very often does the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog depart from it’s core topics focused on Personal Injury Law in the Province of Ontario.

But, when we do, we like to discuss the our beloved Toronto Raptors basketball team. This is one of those occasions where we will discuss, in depth, what we hope to see from the Toronto Raptors in the new year.

Let’s put things into context with quick look back on the past 4 years to Toronto Raptors Basketball.

2019/2020: A season from heaven! A championship year. You can’t ask for anything more from a franchise. A dream come true.

2020/21: Defending the championship. They still had a championship glow, despite Kawhi leaving. They had the best record in the NBA when the season was shut down due to COVID. Raptors end up losing in Game 7 to the Celtics in the playoffs in the Bubble. Solid and entertaining season. A season to be proud of and showed the world that they weren’t just all about Kawhi. They were a real team, with a real identity, along with a championship pedigree.

2021/22: Kyle leaves in a sign and trade. Let’s see what a Kyle-less Raptor team looks like. It’s obvious they are putting all of their marbles in the wing position; without a true centre or backup PG. Every player seems to be a 6″9 wing player. That means while every player can hypothetically play every position on the floor, it also means that they can play no position on the floor effectively. There are just 2 competent guards on the team, no reputable back up point guard, no centre, and nobody on the roster can shoot with any real consistency. That means that the floor spacing is poor. Everyone is also defending up, or defending down, meaning everyone is defending out of position. It’s obvious from the start to the end of this season that the roster construction is weird. But, let’s see if this vision 6’9 thing works out, because the front office has a proven track record of success and has earned it.

2022/23 We are going to do the exact same thing as above, but only this time, we’ve added a true centre in Jacob Poeltl. Same thing. Same result. Poor guard play. Poor shooting. Sometimes I just want to get out there and jack up some 3’s for this team.

2023/24 We are going to do the exact same thing as above, but only this time, we have a new coach and a new point guard who has traditionally be a career backup. Same result. Poor guard play. Poor shooting. Sometimes I just ant to get out there and jack up some 3’s for this team.

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Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, you have to love this time of year. Holiday meals, celebrations, gifts and good vibes galore. That’s what the holidays are about. A bit tone deaf given the political climate? Sure. But the focus of the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog isn’t politics. Let’s keep that debate out of it and focus on the intention of the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog which is to educate the public on the ins and outs of personal injury law in Ontario.

The holiday season can get ruined by anyone who makes a bad decision and jeopardizes their life, and the lives of others because they weren’t thinking or showed a wanton disregard for the health and safety of others. Those sort of people exist. You know, the people who make selfish decisions which impact the safety of others. The people who can’t say “no” to the next drink, or are too proud to call a taxi after a few too many drinks.

So, without further ado, here are Goldfinger Injury Lawyers quick hitter tips on how to keep the Holiday Season a safe one. While following these tips can’t guarantee safety, following them certainly can increase the odds of making this holiday season a fun and safe one, as oppose to needing to consult with a personal injury lawyer on account of a serious accident resulting in injury.

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Long Term Disability Law can be rather complicated.

It’s complicated because Long Term Disability is based in contract, and every contract is different.

For many people, understanding the words and concepts contained in these long term disability contracts is hard to grasp, and confusing. I can’t say that I blame them.

Take a dog bite case for example. If a dog attacks you, and causes injury to you, then the owner of the dog ought to be held responsible for your injuries and losses.

Long Term Disability cases don’t work that way. Simply because you are disabled, or unable to return to work, does not necessarily mean that you are entitled to long term disability benefits.

And, even if you are eligible for long term disability benefits, the quantum of that benefit, along with the payment duration will be in question as well.

There are a lot of fluctuating variables when assessing and quantifying a long term disability case. We call these moving targets. Those targets don’t move as often, or as frequently, with a straight tort claim, like a dog bite case, as they do with a long term disability claim.

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Long Term Disability cases are unique in the world of personal injury law. For starters, they are contract cases (the policy of insurance). Every other case in the world of personal injury law is built on tort law. A dog bite, a slip and fall, a car accident case, an assault case, a product liability case. None of these cases are built on contracts. They are built on tort law. Yet, long term disability cases are predicated on the existence of a policy of insurance, and the wording contained therein.

The wording of those long term disability contracts isn’t written by your personal injury lawyer. Nor is it written by the claimant.

Rather, the wording contained in those long term disability policies is prepared by the long term disability companies themselves.

You would be naive to think that they are worded in such a way as to favour the long term disability claimant, as oppose to the long term disability insurer. Quite the contrary. Every word contained in those policies is there for a reason. The words are there to limit the insurer’s exposure and to maximize their recovery. The policies are drafted in such a way as to offer the least amount of money by way of benefits; while recovering the most amount in premiums.

That makes business sense. If you were running a long term disability insurance company, you would want to maximize your returns as well. A mantra of take in more than what you payout in claims leads to profits, which sits at the core to the existence of any for profit business. Insurance companies are in the business of making money. They are not charities.

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Records are the building materials to any personal injury case. Lucky for you, it’s not your responsibility to gather all of those records. Your personal injury lawyer will get all, or the vast majority of those records own your behalf.

A witness can say one thing at discovery, or up on the stand at trial. What they say can be relevant. But, it’s often self serving evidence. Rarely will you see a Defendant admit that s/he was in the wrong and that the Plaintiff ought to be entitled to all of the damages which they are seeking. The same logic applies to a Plaintiff. They won’t get up on the stand and suggest that the accident was their fault, and that they aren’t in pain; or aren’t deserving of a damages award. People with vested interests in the case are going to tender evidence which best serves their cause.

This is what makes the records so important.

Records: whether they are hospital records, doctor records, tax returns, employment files, police reports have no vested interest in who wins, or who losses the case. The records are objective.

That’s not to say that the records can’t be wrong. That’s also not to say that the author of those records may have made an error in preparing those records. Or, perhaps the author of those records was lazy and was doing the very least in order to complete the task as they are required by their governing body. It could also be that the author of those records carried bias (or was mean) and that bias and those negative feelings carried over into the records which they authored.

Regardless of what’s contained in those records, I can assure you that the personal injury lawyers and the Courts want to see those records. They are very important to your case, even if you don’t think that they are!

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I am a subscriber to a national newspaper. We get the print edition of the newspaper to our personal injury law firm. You read that right. We still get a print edition of the newspaper in the digital age. Our subscription comes with access to the online newspaper, so that that there are paywalls behind their articles. Regardless, we still get the print copy for the office.

An insert in todays newspaper was a popular legal magazine. It’s read by many lawyers across Canada and Ontario. It’s geared to the white collar Bay Street crowd. Those who are focused on business law. It’s not really geared at Main Street lawyers, those who practice directly on behalf of everyday people, such as personal injury lawyers, criminal law lawyer, or family law lawyers.

The headline of the magazine was eye catching; just as a headline ought to be; so kudos to the editors. It was their “Litigation Special” edition of the magazine, and the headline of the publication read “Crisis in The Courts: How Backlogs are Harming the Canadian Economy“.

As a litigation lawyer, I don’t disagree with this statement. But it struck me that the victim of this statement was the Canadian Economy and not the people of Canada; like the Canadian Economy has emotional feelings or something. Now, the Canadian Economy can mean a lot of things. But, when you ask someone about the Canadian Economy, you tend to think about big ticket, macro economic items such as Banking, Interest Rates, Personal and Corporate Taxes,  Housing prices, the Stock Market, Imports and Exports, Inflation, National Debt, National Deficit, the Consumer Price Index and large government subsidies for business or infrastructure projects.

The Canadian Economy is a very broad term, but rarely does one’s mind go to the smaller line items which Canadians see everyday. But these smaller items are what we see in the Courts every day; and more frequently than those bigger ticket items.

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Over the past decade, personal injury lawyers have seen an explosion of a new insurance product offered to their law firms and to their personal injury clients. It’s called Adverse Cost Insurance or After-The Event Insurance.

How does it work and what does it do?

Adverse Cost Insurance or After-The Event Insurance serves to protect a Plaintiff from an adverse cost award following an unsuccessful trial.  At trial, if a party loses, the Judge will generally order that the losing party pay the winning party’s legal fees. Those legal fees, especially after a trial can be very high. This insurance product is there to cover all, or part, of those legal fees which the losing party is ordered to pay by the Judge.

What are the benefits to this insurance?

In theory, the insurance will pay for part, or all of the legal costs if you’re unable to do so on your own.

Let’s imagine a scenario whereby a Plaintiff in a car accident case loses his/her case. After the lengthy trial, the Judge dismisses the Plaintiff’s case, and orders that the Plaintiff pay the Defendant’s legal costs in the amount of $500,000. This is entirely possible. In fact, it recently happened in the case of Belton v. Spencer. In that case, Belton sued Spencer for damages as against Spencer as a result of an accident that he sustained while walking Spencer’s horse .

Following a trial lasting over eight weeks, Belton’s action was dismissed as against Spencer. The Judge ordered that the Plaintiff Belton to pay $350,000 in legal fees plus HST, and $74,472.52 in disbursements, for a total of $469,972.52 to the Defendant Spencer. Ouch!

Spencer’s law firm had an adverse costs insurance policy that to respond to the trial outcome, by paying for the law firm’s disbursements and/or the applicants’ trial costs owed by Belton to Spencer, up to the Policy limits of $100,000. You can read more about the decision here, and about how adverse cost insurance works in this case.

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The title to this Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog post may strike you as a bit odd; but it’s one of the top questions I’ve been receiving since the horrific terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023.

What makes Canada a great country is that we have all sorts of freedoms. But, these wonderful freedoms are not absolute.

In a multicultural society, and in a more homogeneous society, not everyone is going to agree on the same issues, statements or views. It’s a fact of life.

When people don’t agree, or hear things that they don’t like, they can get mad or upset. This may cause them to yell, or even to say grossly offensive, or racist statements. Things might get so heated that it results in damage to property, or physical violence.

So, when someone is shouting racist, homophobic, vile or antisemitic comments at you or at at group, does this make grounds for a viable civil lawsuit against that person, or group of people?

Great question!

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