Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog
There is a lot of paperwork in personal injury cases.
I can recall as a young lawyer attending at criminal court on a set date or for disclosure. Most lawyers didn’t have any paper or documents with them. All they had, and all they needed was their calendar to set a date, or a script off memory to say to make sure their position was on the record for further use.
The civil lawyers (personal injury lawyers) had their litigation bags on wheels, which were supplemented by mountains of bankers boxes.
The calendars have been replaced by phones.
The bankers boxes have been replaced by laptops.
But what has not been replaced in personal injury cases are the volumes and volumes of documents require to paper and to build the case. This has not changed since my call to the bar over 20 years ago.
The sheer quantity of documents can be overwhelming for non personal injury lawyers. It’s particularly intimidating for clients. I can recall showing clients the mountains of paper on their file and they would always be amazed. They could not believe that their file filled up 10 bankers boxes. They were astounded by the amount of paper that their case took up.
With all of those documents come signatures. Clients are asked, and often required to sign documents to move their case along.
Signing legal documents can be intimidating. It’s not everyday that your lawyer, or insurer, requests that you sign a document which is foreign to you.
Some documents are “ok” to sign. Others are not without the guidance of a personal injury lawyer.
The purpose of this installment of the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog is to examine those documents so that you know which ones to be weary of.
Contingency Fee Agreements (CFAs): When you retain a personal injury lawyer on a contingency fee basis, you are required to enter into a written agreement with your lawyer. You will be required to sign a standard form contingency fee agreement which has been developed and adopted by the Law Society of Ontario to comply with the law, and to protect consumers. The standard form contingency fee agreement which personal injury lawyers in Ontario have to use can be found here, along with an explanation from the Law Society on their use. These were introduced to enhance fairness and transparency. I hope that the standard form contingency fee agreement is doing the trick. Prospective clients for personal injury cases who want their lawyers to take their cases on a contingency fee basis will be required to sign a standard form contingency fee agreement.
Authorizations to Release Information: Your personal injury lawyer needs to gather information and documentation for your case. Cases are like sand castles. Your records are like the sand. No records = no case. In order for your personal injury lawyer to gather those records, s/he will need you to sign authorizations which permit the records to be released to your personal injury lawyer. The authorizations are often originals, because doctors, hospitals, the police etc., require originally executed authorizations (most of the time). Many of the authorizations will appear to be the same (ie duplicates). That’s ok, because authorizations can only be used once. Your personal injury lawyer will need to make multiple requests for documents as the case progresses. One request for records simply won’t be enough. Especially from a family doctor, who will see you year, after year, after year. Each year, a new request for updated records will need to be made, which will need to be accompanied by a new authorization. That’s why there are multiple authorizations for a client to sign. This is all par for the course in a personal injury case.
Minutes of Settlement, an Authorization to Settle, a Settlement Disclosure Notice and a Release: These are closing documents for a personal injury case. These documents are completely normal, and required when a case settles outside of Court (or Tribunal). These documents tend to be on standard forms (or not). What these documents say tend to be specific to the case at hand. But generally, they say that the Plaintiff cannot sue again over the particular case; that the settlement is not deemed to be an admission of liability, and that in exchange for the settlement the insurer will pay the Plaintiff “x” amount of dollars. Get legal advice before signing any of these documents because once they’re signed, the case is deemed to be over unless a Judge says otherwise and rules to re-open the case.
Irrevocable Direction: Beware the irrevocable direction! This is an unbreakable written promise. It’s something in writing which you will have a hard time squeezing out of should you change your mind, because it’s irrevocable and in writing. Our personal injury lawyers often see irrevocable directions from treatment facilities. If you don’t have the money get to treatment (physio, massage, etc.), and your insurer is denying the treatment, the treatment facility may ask that you sign an irrevocable direction. It’s a promise to pay them for the treatment incurred upon settlement. The upside is that you get treatment. The facility will be happy to treat you with the security that they will get paid on their account out of the proceeds of settlement. Sounds great right? But, there are a few problems with this. I use the bar example. It’s like going to a bar and running a bar tab. At the end of the night when you go to pay the tab, the bill is always far greater than what you had expected it to be. You will likely be in for an unexpected surprise when you have to pay the treatment bill. What happens if that treatment bill is greater than the amount of your personal injury case? Are you being charged interest or any hidden fees on the treatment bill? How much of the bill is reasonable, and how much of the treatment did you really need? The service provider likely won’t limit the treatment knowing that the more that they treat you, the more money they can potentially make off of you and your case. What happens if your case doesn’t settle and you loose? Do you now have to mortgage your house to pay on an inflated treatment bill? Is this clinic going to sue you for an unpaid service account and use the irrevocable direction which you signed as evidence?
