Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog
I’ve been watching a lot of youth soccer games of late. My son plays a lot of soccer.
Given my son’s young age, more experienced referees are not assigned to officiate his games. His referees tend to be young and inexperienced. They are looking at making a few extra bucks while contributing to a game they really enjoy.
The problem is, that the games tend to get out of hand because the young, inexperienced referees lack the experience, poise and confidence to control the game.
The game got so bad last week a parent from the opposing team walked onto the pitch during a water break to have a conversation with the referee. While I was not privy to their conversation, I imagine that they weren’t discussing the weather or making dinner plans.
In this week’s game, two players got shoved/punched in the face without repercussion to the offending player.
In a previous game, the teams were playing by different sports entirely. One team was playing beautiful futbol, while the other team was playing barbaric football.
When a player breaks the rules of the game, the referee is there to enforce those rules. Much like a police officer enforcing the rules of the road. A referee can penalize a player by calling a foul, or handing out a yellow card, or even a red card. A police officer can do the exact same by having a stern talk with a motorist who crosses the line, or even handing out a ticket or charging them with an offence.
When bad things happen without repercussion, they will not only continue to happen, but those actions will get worse and hurt people.
Nobody wants to see anyone hurt or injured in a youth soccer game. We all want the kids to have fun, and to develop. But on the path to fun and development in a competitive setting, there needs to be proper enforcement of the rules. There cannot be no consequences for negligence or intentional acts causing harm. Otherwise, people get hurt and may take things into their own hands which further escalates matters. Which got me to thinking about personal injury law.
Serious car accidents cause serious personal injuries.
Yet, strangely enough, not all serious car accidents are investigated by the police.
Too often over the past few years, our law firm is seeing serious car accidents whereby police officers are not even coming to the scene of the accident.
Accident victims call 911 to report the car accident. The 911 operator tells the accident victim that they cannot send a police car to the scene to investigate the collision for whatever reason. The accident victim is asked to attend at their local collision reporting centre.
It’s possible for people to get charged as a result of an accident which was reported to the local police collision centre. But, without police attending at the accident scene to conduct a proper investigation, the odds of the offending driver getting charged are reduced.
The penalties also need to be proportionate for the damage inflicted.
The most severe offense under the Highway Traffic Act is Careless Driving (s130 of the HTA)
Careless driving
130 (1) Every person is guilty of the offence of driving carelessly who drives a vehicle or street car on a highway without due care and attention or without reasonable consideration for other persons using the highway.
Someone’s act of careless driving can cause very serious, if not, catastrophic injury. This means that someone can be rendered paraplegic or quadriplegic following the careless driving accident.
What is the maximum penalty at law? Good question. Here is it:
Penalty
(2) On conviction under subsection (1), a person is liable to a fine of not less than $400 and not more than $2,000 or to imprisonment for a term of not more than six months, or to both, and in addition his or her driver’s licence or permit may be suspended for a period of not more than two years.
Imprisonment for 6 months (max) is very rare for a careless driving charge. You generally see this where there is a repeat offender, or when there is a drunk driving charge which can be associated with the careless driving charge. But on a first offence, chances are the person will be fined up to $2,000 and may have their driver’s license suspended for a period of under 2 years. This is a small price to pay for negligence resulting in the complete devastation of another one’s life and livelihood.
And that’s the maximum penalty, if any charges are laid to begin with. Lesser charges come with lesser penalties. The fine for making an improper left hand turn? Pay some money, get some demerit points. You are not going to jail, nor are you having your driver’s license taken away. Same applies for speeding and causing a car accident.
But what about the civil personal injury case? Won’t that effect the Defendant’s life and livelihood?
There’s no doubt that it’s not a good feeling to get sued, or to feel responsible for the harm which you’ve caused. That’s assuming that the Defendant has some form of remorse and conscious. But, at the end of the day, the Defendant’s insurance company takes care of the personal injury case. They find the lawyer to defend the claim. The lawyer and the insurance company make all of the decisions. The insurance company pays for the cost of the defence lawyer’s legal fees. The insurance company makes all of the tactical and strategic decisions throughout the course of the litigation. The insurance company pays out the cost of the settlement of judgment. There is no work required of the Defendant (the insured), save perhaps an appearance at Examinations for Discovery or at trial, should the case go to trial. The Defendant (the insured), is not required to attend at mediation, any interlocutory motions, or at Pre-Trial conferences. Their involvement is far minimal compared to that of an injured Plaintiff.
The car insurance premiums of the Defendant may go up on account of the car accident itself. Let’s assume that the Defendant was paying $2,500/year in car insurance premiums. Let’s assume that their premiums jump by a whopping 25% following the car accident. That’s only a $625 increase. In the grand scheme of things given all of the legal fees which have been paid, the award for the personal injury claim which has been paid, and all of the time accumulated on the file by the insurance company, that $625 increase isn’t very much at all.
