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There was a great piece on 60 Minutes last night featuring brain injured American soldiers returning from wars in the Middle East with problems such as depression, mood disorders, anxiety, memory loss, word finding difficulties, blurred vision, nausea etc. These were initially diagnosed as concussions, or simply not diagnosed at all. Soliders were called malingerers, liars and fakers! Much like insurance companies and their lawyers call accident victims. Eventually, doctors, through using scans more sophisticated then MRIs found that these soldiers were experiencing traumatic brain injury. The piece is called, “The Invisible Injury” and refers to traumatic and mild brain injury. My favourite part of the piece is when a soldier said that he’d rather lose a limb then experience a brain injury. Watch this piece and you will understand why, and understand why brain injury is so serious. They just don’t happen in battles. They can occur in slip and falls, car accidents, motorcycle accidents, bike accidents and a variety of other ways which we here at Goldfinger Injury Lawyers see every day. I like it when the mainstream media shines some light on brain injury. Thanks to the NFL, NHL, and now injured soldiers, the severity of brain injury is getting some much needed attention. Continue reading →

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Every year around this time, Ontarians gather around the radio (old school) or TV and tune in the CTV, CBC, Global or CP24 to listen to the Premier or Minister of Finance go through the details of the provincial budget.

The government in power will make grandiose promises like cutting spending, while at the same time providing more in services. Other promises like slashing taxes, but at the same time collecting MORE tax dollars and making better use of those tax dollars. How about paying less in compensation but demanding more work of civil servants. Or attracting better talent but offering less in salary and benefits compared to other sectors. All of these promises is just a bunch of sucking and blowing. Ever trying sucking and blowing at the same time? Go ahead. Give it a try. Still haven’t found a person able to do it. If you’re that lucky person, please let me know.

At the end of the day, the Toronto Injury Law Blog always comes back to car accidents and personal injury claims. The budget usually has an impact on how personal injury cases run.
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Our law firm handles a wide variety of short term, and long term disabilty claims. The insurance companies we go up against in these cases are well known to our lawyers as we have dealt with them on countless occassions. Large, deep pocketed insurance companies such as Great West Life, Manulife, SunLife, Desjardins, SSQ, Standard Life, Industrial Alliance, Canada Life, RBC Insurance and BMO Insurance are some of the most common LTD and STD carriers we see.

Time and time again, we also observe people being taken advantage of by their insurance company. We want this to stop, and we want you to better understand what it takes to win a difficult LTD or STD action. That’s why this Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog Post will be devoted exclusively to Long Term and Short Term Disabilty Claims. If after reading this blog post, you still have questions about these sort of claims, don’t hesitate to contact the offices of Goldfinger Injury Lawyers for your free consultation with one of our attorneys. Our offices are located in Toronto, London and Peterborough. If you can’t make it to one of our three offices, then we would be happy to meet with you at a place more convenient to you.
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On January 3, 2003 Leslie Brown was driving her car on RR#9 southwest of Napanee, Ontario. The road way icey. She lost control of her vehicle while travelleing down a hill, and then hit a loaded propane truck.

Ms. Brown sustained a traumatic brain injury. She has no recollection of the car accident on account of post traumatic amnesia. Her doctors have told her that she will never be able to return to her job again. She will require 24/7 attendant care for the rest of her life. Never mind caring for her children, she will need somebody to care for herself for the rest of her life.

Ms. Brown sued Lennox County and the Town of Napanee for failing to properly maintain their roads. She alleged that had the roadways been properly salted and sanded, that the car accident never would have happened. This is what we injury lawyers refer to as a Muncipial Liability case. These cases are always tricky as the standard to prove negligence against a Munipaility is much greater than then standard of proving negligence against a regular individual.
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There’s no higher profile sport/personal injury case around right now then the thousands of NFL players who have brought a class action law suit against the league for failing to protect them against concussion/brain injury.

The case opened yesterday in Philadelphia, and right from the outset the league made an attempt to dismiss the class action. U.S. District Court Judge Anita Brody delayed her ruling on the league’s motion to dismiss the case, and will be hearing argument for weeks to come from both sides.

The players are accusing the league of “deliberately and fraudulently” hiding the risks associated with concussion and brain injury from them while they were playing. Essentially, the players argue that the league knew, or ought to have known of the danger of brain injury and repeated knocks to the head, but they didn’t share these dangers with their players and required that they work/play in a dangerous environment without proper safeguards in place. The working conditions for the players were dangerous, and the league did little about it to protect their safety. If the players didn’t do what they coaches said and sacrificed their brains and livelihood, they’d be off the team and out of a job.
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Lots of injury and insurance lawyers across Ontario have been looking for some guidance with respect to what sort of cases rightly, or wrongly fall in to the Minor Inury Guideline or MIG as it’s known in the industry.

If you’ve never heard of the MIG, that’s ok. You’re not alone. Probably 99% of Ontarians have never heard of it, despite of the fact that it now applies to 100% of insured motorists in the province.

After a car accident, people are entitled to no fault benefits from their car insurer. These no fault or accident benefits are intented to help the accident victim get better following the collision. They pay for such things as physiotherapy, massage, chriopractic care, occupational therapy, speech language therapy, or just a gym membership.

The MIG was introduced by Ontario’s Provincial Government and took place effective September 1, 2010. Insurers and their lobbysists pushed for its introduction. Essentially, it allowed insurance companies to cut your medical and rehabilitative benefits from $50,000 down to $3,500. The justification for this was that insurers were paying too much to litigate matters, too much on rehab following car crashes, and spending too much money on fraud. Here is a copy of the MIG
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Spring is here. Well. Kinda. The snow has melted in some parts of Ontario at least. I was in Thunder Bay 2 weeks ago and the snow hasn’t yet melted there, but it’s starting to. The snow around the Peterborough office is slowly melting. And I can say without a great big smile on my face that the snow around the London and Toronto offices is now completely gone.

Toronto Injury Law Blog readers seem to love my lists, so without further ado, here are Brian Goldfinger’s top 5 safety tips for the springtime. Keep in mind that these tips won’t keep you or your loved ones 100% safe, but they will certainly reduce the risk of serious injury related to accident. I’ve developed these tips after years of seeing how accidents happen, and after years of seeing the mistakes which people begin to make after a long hard winter season.
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Clients are constantly asking me for the best way to get the insurance company to pay for treatment following an accident.

There are no quick and dirty legal answers to this question, but there are certainly a few routes which need to be explored. While we have a great OHIP system here in Ontario, some forms of treatment simply aren’t covered by OHIP, or they take far too long to get via the public system.

The first question one must ask is whether or not you have private medical benefits offered through your employer, or a private insurance plan. Some people have work coverage for up to $500 in massage, physio, chiro treatment etc offered through their workplace. This would be your first source of recovery for treament funding, regardless of whether or not you’re entitled to accident benefits or not. Under the Insurance Act, the law requires that your first exhaust your private or “collateral benefits”, before you can even touch your accident benefits via Ontario’s complicated No Fault Accident Benefit Regime.
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What does it take to be an expert injury lawyer? Many lawyers claim to be experts, but very few are. Many lawyers claim to have the experience, know how, savoir fair and the resources to maximize the recovery for your case, but how can you trust these claims?

The reason for this topic in my Toronto Injury Law Blog Post this week, is because I was recently retained by 6 new clients whose files were all in the hands of self professed “expert lawyers“, and they were completely unsatisfied by the level of service and results attained to that point in the case. Upon reviewing the file, it was clear to me that limitation periods had been missed, benefits which should have been claimed were ignored, and clients were not getting the medical benefits or medical treatment they so desperately needed. It was clear to me, and to the lawyers at my law firm that these “self-claimed experts” did not know what they were doing. It was as if it was the first time they had handled a personal injury case in Ontario. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I felt shock, anger, and sympathy for my clients all at the same time. You try that. It’s a whirlwind of emotion.
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One of the most common questions we get from clients here at our law firm is “what does it take to have a sucessful accident case“? Essentially, people want to know what they can do in order to maximize their recovery and reduce their waiting time. It doesn’t matter if the client is from Toronto, London, or Peterborough; the question is always the same.

For starters, there is no short or easy answer to this question, and similar fact questions. Every person is different, every injury is different, every accident is different, which makes every case different.

There is also no such thing as “winning” a case. If you’re really hurt, then no amount of money will ever compensate you for your lost health. WIll a million dollars help you walk again if you’ve been rendered a parapeligic following serious car wreck on Highway 401 outside of Woodstock? Think about it.

What we tell people is that they ought to focus on their wellness and rehabilitation. The rest will take care of itself. The more which people focus on their legal case, the more anxious, worried and frustrated they will get. There are countless legal hurdles which need to be overcome by a skillful lawyer which all take time. Add to that the limited resouces in Ontario’s Courts and at FSCO which contribute to a long delay, you might be waiting a long time until your case sees the inside of the Courtroom, let alone settle.
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