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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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We get lots of calls at our law firm from accident victims across Ontario all with the same simple inquiry:

“I’ve been hurt in a car accident. I applied for accident benefits through my car insurance company. And now the car insurance company isn’t paying any accident benefits! Why is that and what can you do to help me?”

Our lawyers do our very best to help every person who calls our office with such an inquiry. We understand that people become very dependent on the benefits which an insurance company provides for them following a serious car crash. An insurer may pay you up to $400/week for an Income Replacement Benefit. They may pay you up to $1,500/month in an Attendant Care Benefit. They may also be paying for your massage, physiotherapy, pain management clinic, psychological counseling, or some other form of treatment which is not covered by OHIP. On the other hand, an insurance company may refuse to pay you anything.

There are plenty of reasons why your accident benefits might not be getting paid. Maybe you’ve changed your address and you haven’t replied to any letters which the insurance adjuster has been sending you? Maybe the insurance company hired a private investigator to take photos/video of you and caught you doing the death walk along the top of Toronto’s CN Tower. Maybe you haven’t even completed the requisite paperwork to get your case started in the first place.
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Imagine that you or a loved one sustained a left leg crush injury requiring amputation, 6 broken ribs, an orbital bone fracture, a tib/fib fracture, a pelvic fracture, internal bleeding along with a traumatic brain injury involving a subdural hematoma. Not pretty. It’s likely that your injuries would be categorized as “catastrophic” under the Insurance Act.

Often, following these catastrophic injuries, the client has a difficult time getting back to their pre-accident state of mind or physical self. The client might have a difficult time managing their activities of daily living, work duties, self-care duties, housekeeping and home maintenance, along with a whole other slew of activities of daily living which are difficult to predict.

The focus of this Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog Post will be on mental capacity, and not physical capacity. The reason for that is in Ontario, mental capacity is very important for any personal injury case.
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Calls resulting in injury from winter time trips, slips and falls are very common at our law firm. We see an increased amount of calls as a result of slipping on snow, ice, black ice, cracked pavement, slush and general wet conditions around the winter time. And for good reason. The weather in such places as Toronto, London and Peterborough is frankly quite bad, and puts everyone at greater risk of injury. If you were living in a warm climate, you wouldn’t have to worry about any of the winter hazards which Ontarians encouter every day having to endure our harsh winters. My parents would tell me that we have it good compared to the cold, ice and snow which they experienced in early Toronto. It’s a fact that our winters are less harsh then the winters which we presently experience; but I will have to leave that explanation to a climatologist from Environment Canada.

Quick injury lawyer factoid: Did you know that you can check the amount of snow fall/precipiation using the Environment Canada website? This is a handy tool for any winter time slip and fall claim in order to establish how much snow was on the ground the day of; or the days leading up to the accident. If one of our clients slipped and fell on a large patch of ice, we can tell from the Environment Canada website whether or not the property had been maintained based on the weather and precipitation/snow patterns.
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The biggest snow storm of the year has hit Toronto and other parts of Ontario. Parts of Highway 401 have been closed off on account of car accidents, poor visibility and poor driving conditions. The police, tow truck drivers and CAA are backlogged with reports of accidents and vehicles in distress. It’s days like these where people ask this personal injury lawyer “how can I avoid getting in to a car accident when the conditions are so bad“?

Well, on this snowy Toronto day, I’m going to share with you Brian Goldfinger’s top 6 tips on how to avoid/evade a car accident in a bad snow storm. If these tips aren’t sufficient, then check out the Goldfinger Guide to Fair Compensation, a copy of which is available at our website here, or you can request a hard copy from our office by clicking a link here.
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If you’ve been hurt or injured in a car accident, wouldn’t it be nice to recover $5,000,000 or $10,000,000 or even $50,000,000 for your injuries? The answer to that is a resounding “YES” from accident victims and injury lawyers alike. This would be amazing!

Unfortunately, the laws for damages in Canada, and in Ontario don’t make it very easy for you to recover damages in the tens of millions of dollars.

But Brian, how can you put a limit on my pain and suffering after a car accident? I’m really hurt, and my life has been a nightmare.

The Supreme Court of Canada, in a trilogy of 3 cases has but a cap on the limits for pain and suffering at around $310,000-$322,000 (depending on inflation rates). So, the most money a Court could award you following your car accident case for your pain and suffering is limited to around $322,000. This max only goes to the most seriously injured of persons who are taking the most serious of pain medications, anti inflammatory medication and who are receiving the very best in treatment.
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In a car accident involving pedestrian vs. car; car usually wins. If your name isn’t Superman, then it’s safe to say that the car will knock down and injure the pedestrian time and time again.

The question in pedestrian vs. car accidents isn’t always a question of damages; meaning I got hit by a car now pay me. The question can be hotly contested on the issue liability. That means who’s at fault for the accident. Who is to blame. Is the car driver 100% at fault? Was the pedestrian responsible for the accident, and if so, what percentage of liability ought to rest on his or her shoulders? At law, this apportionment of liability (like dividing up a piece of pie) is also expressed as contributory negligence.

Some of the worst car accident cases which my law firm has ever seen have involved cars hitting pedestrians while they’re trying to cross the road. One of the hardest parts of my job is having to explain the theory of contributory negligence to a client. The more injured the client, the more difficult the explanation becomes (not that every explanation isn’t difficult to begin with).
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