Reforming Medical Assessments for Automobile Insurance Accident Benefits
Earlier this year, the Ontario Government announced in its budget the intention to reform a number of areas of Ontario’s automobile insurance system. The budget stated that the province will seek to “reform the flawed medical assessment process to bring credibility and accountability to the assessment that injured claimants must undergo after an accident.”
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Province’s auto insurance plan deemed problematic by lawyers
Some of the Ontario government’s proposed changes to auto insurance laws will not reduce insurance costs and premiums, the Federation of Ontario Law Associations said.
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Ontario’s Punish The Innocent Auto Insurance Laws
Doug Ford’s recent budget focused on bringing auto insurance premiums down, but ignored the sleight of hand on the other end: for those who are injured and actually need help. What is missed is that our current laws punish the innocent and let the guilty off scott-free. While you might agree that the insurance industry needs deductibles, you may be surprised that the innocent are paying 100% of them, while the guilty pay $0.
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Open Letter to Finance Minister Rod Phillips Concerning the Latest Auto Insurance Review
Auto insurance in Ontario is segmented according to nine lines of coverage. Our submission focuses on the two lines which represent the largest percentage of claim costs, they being the Statutory Accident Benefit and Third Party Liability-Personal Injury lines. According to FSCO, in the 2015, 2016 and 2017 calendar years, those lines, respectively, accounted for 58.1%, 56.2% and 52.4% of auto insurance claims costs.
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How good are estimates of industry-wide insurance fraud?
Insurers really don’t know how much money fraud is costing them.
“In Ontario, we have to rely on other jurisdictions to try and quantify it because we are so lousy at it,” said Gordon Rasbach, former vice president of property and claims fraud at Aviva Canada, during a recent panel discussion.
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Think ‘no-fault’ means it’s not your fault? Think again
In many parts of Canada, your auto insurance (or parts of it) is called “no-fault”. Seems clear enough, right? When no-fault divorce was introduced, it meant you didn’t have to prove you’d been neglected or abused or fooled around on.
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Continuity of Care
On September 20, 2019, the CPSO approved a suite of four policies and one Advice to the Profession companion document. The policies outline the mandatory regulations (the “musts”) and the companion document suggests optional best practices and advice.
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What you need to know if you have a disability and want to vote
If you’re one of the six million or so Canadians who identify as having at least one disability, there are new tools and services available to help you vote.
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1] The plaintiff brought this action for damages sustained as a result of a motor vehicle collision which occurred on March 24, 2014. The action was tried by a jury. Both liability and damages were at issue.
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6] No offer to settle was forthcoming from the defendant. There was not even an offer to go without costs, which effectively left the plaintiff with no choice but to proceed to trial to seek recovery for her injuries. This is of course a fully defensible position for the defendant to take, but it may have concomitant consequences.
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7] The trial was adjourned twice at the request of defence counsel – the first to accommodate their expert who was unable to attend; the second because defence counsel was conducting another trial.
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8] Given that the plaintiff did not beat her formal offer of $75,000.00 plus costs and disbursements, Rule 49 is not engaged. The plaintiff was, however, successful against the defendant on damages and liability, and thus is entitled to her costs on a partial indemnity basis.
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30] The defendant took what I would view to be a hard-ball approach to this claim, and now must accept the consequences of that decision.
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31] After considering all of the above, the plaintiff is awarded costs in the amount of $210,587.20, plus disbursements of $64,869.40 (both figures inclusive of HST), for a total of $275,456.60. There has been no reduction for costs thrown away for trial preparation.
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Rodrigues v. Purtill, 2019 ONCA 740 (CanLII), <http://canlii.ca/t/j2hbh>
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7] Third, the appellant says that the trial judge improperly considered the evidence of a registered psychologist and a specialist in the treatment of children, who gave evidence on whether the injuries to the children met the threshold. Section 4.3 of the regulation refers to such evidence being given by a “physician”.
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8] The statutory threshold for non-pecuniary loss, s. 267.5(5), requires the court to determine whether there has been a “permanent serious impairment of an important physical, mental or psychological function.” Section 4.2 of the Regulation sets out the criteria to be applied in determining whether there has been a permanent impairment of such a function. Section 4.3 requires that the plaintiff adduce the evidence of one or more “physicians” who are “trained for and experienced in the assessment or treatment of the type of impairment” alleged. The plaintiff must also adduce evidence to corroborate the change in function that is alleged to be a permanent serious impairment of an important physical, mental or psychological function.
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9] In the particular circumstances of this case, we do not give effect to this ground of appeal. We note, first, that the evidence of the psychologist was led by the plaintiffs, without objection by the appellant. The trial judge qualified the psychologist as an expert, capable of giving expert evidence on the issues. The appellant took no objection to the witness’s qualifications and the issue was not raised until closing arguments. The failure to object, when the witness was qualified, can reasonably be taken to be an acknowledgment that the witness was qualified to give the opinion she tendered.
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10] Second, as the respondents note, evidence of psychologists has been accepted in other such cases, without objection: see e.g.
Podleszanski v. Medley (2007), 2007 CanLII 46714 (ON SC), 88 O.R. (3d) 294 (Sup. Ct.);
Hayden v. Stevenson,
[2009] O.J. No. 2571 (Sup. Ct.);
Zhu v. Matador,
2015 ONSC 178 (CanLII); and
Mamado v. Fridson,
2016 ONSC 4080 (CanLII). The appellant has pointed to no authority holding that the requisite evidence must be given by a medical doctor as opposed to a psychologist.
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11] Third, the psychologist’s evidence was confirmed by the evidence of the appellant’s own expert psychiatrist, which satisfied the requirements of the threshold.
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12] We therefore find it unnecessary to consider the respondents’ submission that a psychologist can be considered a “physician” for the purpose of s. 4.3 of the Regulation.
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13] Arguably, what is important for the purposes of the application of the legislation and the regulation is not whether the expert is labelled a “doctor”, a “physician”, a “psychiatrist” or a “psychologist”, but whether he or she has the requisite training and experience to assess the impairment, apply the established guidelines and standards of the profession, and to give expert evidence on the application of the criteria set out in the regulation to a particular case. The trial judge would make that determination in the exercise of his or her gatekeeping role over expert evidence. The purpose of the legislation might well support an interpretation of “physician” that would include a “psychologist”. In the circumstances of this case, however, we do not find it necessary to decide this issue.
