It is the case that contingency fees, whereby a lawyer or firm can contract for a retainer that will pay it a percentage of a recovery, were only recently permitted by legislation in Ontario, the last province to do so. But contingency fees in personal injury cases in Ontario go back many decades, likely coincident with the coming of the motor car to Ontario roads, and perhaps even earlier. The contingency involved was that if there was no recovery of damages, the lawyer did not get paid and was out of pocket for the disbursements necessary to take the case to trial.
Author Archives: Admin4
Healing or Harming? Healthcare Provider Interactions with Injured Workers and Insurers in Workers’ Compensation Systems
Healthcare providers (HCPs) are influential in the injured workers’ recovery process and fulfil many roles in the delivery of health services. Interactions between HCPs and insurers can also affect injured workers’ engagement in rehabilitation and subsequently their recovery and return to work. Consideration of the injured workers’ perceptions and experiences as consumers of medical and compensation services can provide vital information about the quality, efficacy and impact of such systems.
Reducing Taxpayers’ Dollars means the CMPA taking a Different Litigation Approach
Unlike private insurers who make measured business decisions to bring cases to conclusion, the CMPA has been known to spend more money litigating a matter than the case is worth in order to protect the reputation and integrity of the defendant doctor.
http://otlablog.com/
Auto insurance fraud: A potentially dangerous and expensive problem
Recently, Ontarians learned that a 23-year veteran of Peel Regional Police was sentenced to five years in jail for defrauding insurance companies of almost $1 million. Constable Carlton Watson was found guilty of accepting a fee to create several motor vehicle accident reports for collisions that never happened that resulted in fraudulent physical damage and injury claims being paid out by insurers.
Appeal Judge Rips Trial Judge’s Conduct Towards Self-Represented Defendant
A Superior Court Judge has tossed out a Small Claims Court judgment for a long list of reasons which primarily involve the inappropriate manner in which the trial judge dealt with the self-represented defendant throughout the course of the trial.
From one of our members:
Someone called. We could not make it out. Someone called again, it was the Social Security Tribunal of Canada, her message said “if your matter has already been completed then you can disregard this call” “otherwise you can call us” and left an OUT OF SERVICE NUMBER 1-877-277-8577.
I emailed the Social Security Tribunal and was informed that I had been given the wrong number by them and it should have been 1-877-227-8577.
To make matters worse the email he replied back to me with quoted someone else s case number! Not mine!
Am I in the twilight zone?
$70,000 Non-Pecuniary Assessement For Largely Recovered but “Vulnerable” Soft Tissue Injuries
In today’s case (Boysen-Barstow v. ICBC) the Plaintiff was injured in a 2011 collision caused by an unidentified motorist. ICBC accepted statutory fault for the collision. The Plaintiff sustained various soft tissue injuries which enjoyed significant recovery but remained susceptible to aggravation.
COST OF JUSTICE PROJECT : ATTRITION STUDY
The Final Report of the CFCJ’s Cost of Civil Justice Attrition in BC’s Courts has been published!
The goal of the Attrition Study, as explained in a previous CFCJ Slaw post and on the CFCJ website, was to examine the outcome of unresolved, civil, non-family cases in the BC Supreme Court and assess the level of satisfaction among claimants. Data for the Study was collected by reviewing cases, analyzing court records and carrying out telephone surveys with claimants and their counsel.
http://www.cfcj-fcjc.org/
Auto accident victims in insurance limbo
For car owners in Nova Scotia, August 1, 2015, was an important day. It was then that Section 4 of the Nova Scotia Automobile Tort Recovery Limitations Regulations was revoked. This section dealt with certain aspects of automobile tort claims and had also set the discount rate for any future losses arising out of an accident at 3.5%.
http://www.insurancebusiness.
Insurance fraud in Ontario is the governments fault
Ontario drivers have to pay the highest average auto insurance premiums in Canada, with prices as much as 47% more than some other provinces in the country. Much of this disparity has been attributed to the high auto insurance fraud rate in the country, which is at epidemic levels according to some sources.
http://www.