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I had an in person attendance in Court for the first time since I can remember dating back to when the Pandemic shut down the Courts. During the Pandemic, and afterwards, most Courts have opted for virtual attendances. This has lead to increased efficiency for our Courts. They can do more, with less resources. It also translates into considerable savings for clients and self represented litigants. They don’t have to pay for their lawyer’s travel time, or any mileage, parking etc. Clients and litigants also don’t have to travel either. They can log in to Court from the comfort of their own home. That is more comfortable, and less intimidating for clients and litigants.

But this Court (in Guelph) required an in person attendance for the hearing of an Application under the Insurance Act as it related to a catastrophic car accident case. It was nice to be back in Court, in person.

A few observations after a long lay off from in person Court appearances.

As a lawyer, you take it for granted that you appear robbed in front of a Judge, while litigants and clients are in plain clothes. The robes really make you stand out. This has its positives, and negatives.

Because I was wearing my litigation robes, I was approached by two separate people in the Courthouse who were looking for directions, and also looking for legal advice; and in turn, looking for a lawyer.

As a robbed lawyer, in the Courthouse, you become a part of the production so to say. You wouldn’t see a gowned up lawyer anywhere else but a Courthouse. The robes signal to the world that you are a lawyer, and that they are in a Courthouse where laws get made.

Being asked for legal advice, or being asked whether or not I could help a stranger with their case was not odd. It kinda happens all of the time once people find out that you’re a lawyer. Everyone seems to have a hypothetical question regarding a “friend’s” legal problem which they want solved, or some tips on how to manage the situation. But, it had been a long time since that happened randomly inside of a Courthouse because it had been so long since I needed to attend at Court in person.

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Nobody is perfect. People make mistakes. Sometimes they are honest mistakes. Other times, they are avoidable. We certainly don’t expect regulated professionals to make mistakes, but they do. It happens.

But, when a pharmacist makes an error, it can be deadly or result in very serious health consequences.

When a pharmacist makes an error in the dispensing of medication, this is called a dispensing error case. And our law firm, Goldfinger Injury Lawyers has handled countless dispensing error cases throughout the years. Here are some common types of dispensing error cases we have seen.

The Right Medication, but the Wrong Dosage

In these cases, the pharmacists gets the medication correct, but dispenses the incorrect dosage. Too little of the medication often times doesn’t cause much harm (but it can). Take the example of a seizure medication or an anti-nausea medication. Too little won’t have the desired effect. Too much of a certain medication can have deadly consequences. Most common in these cases are the dispensing of methadone. A doctor may prescible a 10mg dosage, but the pharmacist accidentally dispenses 100mg of methadone. Too much methadone can result in seizures, stopping to breath, muscle damage and other issues. Naloxone is a medication which quickly reverses the effect of an opioid like methadone. If you don’t get a Naloxone injection quickly after the overdose, or you aren’t taken to hospital quickly, the overdose can have life long consequences.

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When I was a young lawyer, I worked at a law firm in Yorkville that had 2 dogs and a cat.

I had never worked in any office environment that had any sort of animal. Having a dog, or a cat, let alone multiple animals in a law office, seemed very strange to me. When I thought about the idea of a traditional law firm, the image of a dog or a cat in the office never came to mind.

The previous law firms I worked at were in large office towers; on Bay Street in Downtown Toronto. There were no animals allowed in those office towers. Even if there were animals allowed, the financial district was not the ideal place to walk a dog. Taking the dog in a business elevator with all of those white collar executives wasn’t the right fit. Nor was going outside of your tower multiple times per day to get the dog some fresh air.

But I was not working at a traditional law firm.  I was working at a personal injury law firm. And the thing about personal injury law, is…well…you guessed it…It’s rather personal.

Personal injury law firms do not represent large institutional clients like multi billion dollar, multi national corporations. Personal injury law firms represent everyday people, like you and me. So, the idea of having an office dog, was not so far fetched.

I’ve loved dogs all of my life. But, not to the point that I felt the urge to take my pet to work.

So what was it like having a dog (or two), along with a cat in the workplace?

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When I was a young personal injury lawyer, an odd case appeared on my desk.

The Plaintiff was an older automobile executive, who broke 3 vertebrae, torn his rotator cuff and fractured his skull in a car accident.

The injuries were quite significant. They prevented the client from returning to work, or engaging in his usual personal care and recreational activities. His life would be forever changed as a result of the car accident.

What was odd was that the car accident was a single car accident. The client was a passenger in the vehicle. The driver had lost control, drove the car off the shoulder of the road, and flipped the vehicle into a ditch along a deserted country road. I imagine that the car accident could have been even more serious had there been more vehicles involved.

So, in that case, the passenger would sue the driver for having lost control and flipped over the vehicle.

In this case, the driver was the client’s own daughter.

Isn’t that strange. A father, needing to sue his own daughter for his personal injuries arising from a car accident. It’s not like the daughter intentionally tried to flip over the vehicle. It was, by all accounts; an accident.

But how does that work, and what are the ramifications of a father, having to sue his own child for damages in a personal injury case? Can the daughter go to jail? Will her credit rating be ruined forever? Does she need to hire a personal injury lawyer to defend her claim? Will she need to go to trial and square off against her own father in open Court? Will this father/daughter personal injury case get really nasty such that Dad will take away Daughter’s TV and cell phone privileges?

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One of my biggest predictions coming out of COVID Lockdowns and the COVID Pandemic would be the rise of assaults.

After many months of being locked down and shut out of social interaction, people forgot how to be kind to one another. We forgot how to share public spaces. We forgot how to be patient, and polite to strangers. We had a lot of built up anger, angst, along with all sorts of other emotions (both positive and negative) after being locked down for so long. We were no longer able to behave like public places were our own living rooms. They were public spaces meant to be shared. Over the Pandemic, we forgot how to share these public spaces, and began to act in such a way which showed a lesser regard for our peers.

This problem is compounded by the increases in mental illness we have seen during the course of the Pandemic. Lack of access to medical care, having people locked down, increased unemployment with increased costs of living, increased interest rates…It’s all not good for one’s mental health.

Regretfully, the prediction that common assaults (or random acts of violence in public) would increase was correct. Just use the TTC as your benchmark. Since the Pandemic lockdowns ended, and we have done our best to return to a sense of normalcy, random acts of violence on the TTC have increased dramatically. A young boy was stabbed and murdered for no apparent reason. He was simply in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

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Sexual assault cases are tricky.

Not because the sexual assault itself didn’t happen.

Not because the Plaintiff hasn’t been very seriously hurt and seriously impacted by the sexual assault.

Sexual assault cases are tricky because they can take so much out of the Plaintiff him/herself.

For starters, it’s really hard to step forward, and to take that first step in reporting the sexual assault. That takes serious strength and courage to do. Many victims of sexual assault don’t step forward at all. Or if they do, it takes years and years for them to gather the strength and courage to do so. It’s hard to put yourself out there, and be vulnerable.

That’s why when someone takes the brave step of reaching out and calling our law firm to report and wanting to pursue a sexual assault case, we know that this decision was not made lightly. It may have taken hours, days or perhaps years for that person to make the call to one of our lawyers. Continue reading →

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The entire field of personal injury law is rather effective at making sure that accident victims aren’t unjustly enriched by the benefits or moneys which they receive in their case.

Cases have been fought all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada to make sure that innocent accident victims aren’t getting their cake, and eating it too.

Insurance companies will fight tooth and nail to make sure that Plaintiffs don’t double dip.

It can be hard for innocent accident victims to understand that laws against double dipping exist. Many think that legal remedies are an all you can eat buffet. Unfortunately for Plaintiffs, they are not.

The laws surrounding remedies, damages and set offs exist because at law, an accident victim is not allowed to be put in a better position post accident, than they were pre-accident. The laws surrounding compensation exist to make a person whole again; and not to put them in a better position than they were pre-accident.

The accident should not be seen as a monetary windfall for the Plaintiff. It should be seen as a means to an end to make them whole for their past losses, and those losses moving forward.

Certainly, an insurer will have a more conservative valuation of what those losses are. While a Plaintiff will have a more aggressive valuation. Where that number lies is often somewhere in the middle. But, it’s important to state that a Plaintiff can only be awarded what’s recoverable at law.

Many clients want to see the Defendant suffer. They want to see the Defendant go to jail, or become their butler until the end of time as compensation for their damages. Plaintiffs want to own the Defendant’s home, all of their prized possessions, and receive a public apology in four national newspapers. The law just doesn’t work this way. A Judge cannot sent a Defendant to jail in a civil personal injury case. The only thing that the Judge can do is order the Defendant pay the Plaintiff compensation within the framework of the law.

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When I first started the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog, I often ended each entry with a short blurb about my favourite sports team; the Toronto Raptors.

I’ve been a Toronto Raptors fan since Day 1. I was an NBA basketball fan long before the Raptors came to Toronto, so convincing me to root for the Raptors was an easy sell.

I remember the nay sayers when we drafted Damon Stoudamire as the franchise’s first ever draft pick. The rise, and fall of Vince Carter (along with his graduation ceremony on the same day as a Game #7 playoff game vs. Allen Iverson). I remember the promise of so many failed draft picks and free agent signings: Michael Bradley, Yogi Stewart, Rafael Aruajo, Aleksandar Radojević, Rasul Butler, Hedo Turkoglu, and my all time favourite: Uros Slokar.

I was there for what I believe was the most poorly attended game in Raptor history: vs. the Charlotte Bobcats back when the Bobcats wore those ugly orange uniforms on a Tuesday night of a heavy snowstorm. I think Gerald Henderson went off that night.

I was there when Joey Graham was promised to be the “next great guy” because he had a remarkable NBA physique. Those “next great guys” came and went. From Jamario Moon to Sonny Weems, to the Slovenian Gangster Primoz Brezec, just to name a few. Continue reading →

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One of my young personal injury lawyers and I had a chat following an Examination for Discovery. He was quite surprised by the tone which the lawyers for the insurance company took with our client. The lawyers were mean, nasty, rude, snarky and did not give our client the benefit of the doubt.

Would that lawyer speak in that rude of a tone to a stranger? Nope.

Would that lawyer speak that way in a regular world setting outside of the law? Nope.

If that lawyer spoke that way in his/her everyday life, would they have any friends? Nope.

So it begs the question: why are lawyers so stern and mean, particularly during the discovery process?

There are many answers to this question.

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The purpose of this instalment of the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog is not about settling a personal injury case fast.

Rather, it’s about what money can be claimed, and recovered relatively quickly, after an innocent accident victim cannot return to work and earn an income after a serious accident.

Getting paid benefits quickly to supplement one’s lost income, because one cannot work after a serious accident is a very common concern for clients. Legitimately so. A Plaintiff goes from earning a gainful income one day; to being disabled and unable to do so the next.  The bill collectors don’t care that you’ve been involved in a serious accident. All that they care about is that their bills get paid.

It’s our hope that this instalment of the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog gives you some insight on sources to claim benefits in order to make ends meet.

Before we examine those sources, here are a few practical tips to claiming benefits:

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