• FAIR – supporting auto accident victims through advocacy and education
  • FAIR – supporting auto accident victims through advocacy and education
  • FAIR – supporting auto accident victims through advocacy and education

Latest News Articles

September 5, 2019

by Admin2

Ontario Keeping Its Promise to Put Drivers First

Ontario is enabling drivers to carry electronic proof of auto insurance on their mobile device, including their smartphones, as part of the Putting Drivers First blueprint announced in the 2019 Budget. 
 
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T-Bone Accidents – Dangerous and Often Hard To Determine Who Is At Fault

Car accidents usually happen very suddenly, often they are so fast that you don’t even know how they happened until after the crash. Some accidents take specially trained forensic investigators to determine who hit whom, how and how fast. One of the most difficult car accidents to reconstruct can be the T-Bone. 
 
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Five ways to navigate an insurance claim

Braxton Hicks contractions, signs of false labour, hit me like a freight train two weeks ago. Never having been through childbirth before, my fiancé and I assumed that this was the “big event,” so I grabbed a change of clothes and made my way down the street to the car. In my frantic state, with my fiancé thousands of kilometres away in Edmonton but joining me via WhatsApp, I was planning to drive myself to our assigned hospital, which is only seven minutes away from our house in Toronto. 
 
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Expert Access Solves Cashflow Issue for Law Firms and Experts

Personal injury lawyers who once depended on fairly steady cash flow are increasingly dependent on third party financing such as personal or business lines of credit to keep their practices afloat. Out of pocket disbursement expenses – particularly the costly expert reports required to develop every file – add up to significant costs for any practice and are a growing burden to carry. 
 
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What happens in an LTD lawsuit?

In my legal practice, I represent people across Ontario whose short-term disability (STD) and long-term disability (LTD) claims have been denied or terminated. My clients are often shocked and stunned when their insurance company denies their disability claim. 
 
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Injured provincial workers group bringing human rights concerns to UN

Canada is being reviewed by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, including allegations that Canadian workers’ compensation systems are committing a human rights violation. 
 
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Ontario Injured Workers Bring Concerns to the United Nations

“Workers compensation is a critical lifeline for people who get injured on the job,” says Steve Mantis, chair of ONIWG’s Research Action Committee that prepared the submission. “Deeming denies people the right to income security when they are unable to get back to work because of a workplace injury.” 
 
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Hope for Spinal Cord Injury Treatment

September is National Spinal Cord Injury Awareness Month.  According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, “there are an estimated 12,000 spinal cord injuries every year in the United States alone; and more than a quarter of a million Americans are currently living with spinal cord injuries.” 
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Levac v. James, 2019 ONSC 5092 (CanLII), <http://canlii.ca/t/j27kj  

[7]               The Plaintiff’s claim arises from infections suffered by a group of some 21 patients who were administered epidural steroid injections by Dr. James. The class members were all infected patients at the Defendant, Rothbart Centre For Pain Care Ltd. (“Rothbart Centre”), where Dr. James practiced.

[8]               The Defendants are Dr. James, the Rothbart Centre (which is now insolvent), the Rothbart Centre’s administrator, Dr. Peter Rothbart, and 16 nurses who worked at the Rothbart Centre during the relevant time. The central issues in this motion are whether there are sufficient common issues and whether a class proceeding is the preferable procedure for the purposes of ss. 5(1)(c) and (d) of the Class Proceedings Act, 1992, SO 1992, c 6 (“CPA”).

[9]               More specifically, this case raises the question of whether statistical evidence with respect to rates of infection and evidence of Dr. James’ infection prevention and control (“IPAC”) practices can amount to proof of causation and standard of care for the purposes of tort liability, or whether the cause of each claimant’s injury must be determined individually. There is conflicting evidence as to whether or not Dr. James IPAC practices were uniformly implemented with respect to all of his patients. There is also some contentious evidence about likely sources of the infections.

For those unfamiliar with this case:
Levac v. James, 2017 ONCA 842 (CanLII), <http://canlii.ca/t/hmvrb 
Levac v. James, 2017 ONCA 842 (CanLII), <http://canlii.ca/t/hmvrb 
Did you attend the Rothbart Pain Clinic for treatment? If so, you may want to read the Toronto Star articles below.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/12/15/toronto-doctor-at-centre-of-outbreak-loses-licence-for-10-months.html 

Discipline hearing told MD tried to thwart investigation Anesthesiologist at centre of outbreak has pleaded no contest to incompetence and dishonourable conduct. Disciplinary body is told infected patients lost mobility, independence and control of their bladders.  http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/11/16/discipline-hearing-told-md-tried-to-thwart-investigation.html

Public not told of infection outbreak at private Toronto pain clinic Sat Sep 20 2014

Infection outbreak at pain clinic sparks calls for greater transparency Tue Sep 23 2014

Pain clinic doctor faces disciplinary hearing after outbreak Thu Sep 25 2014

Rothbart Centre outbreak might have started earlier: lawyer Sun Oct 05 2014

Ontario health minister orders data on clinics made public Sun Oct 05 2014

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