Van Dyke Injury Law Blog
Death and serious injuries are an unacceptable price to pay for speed on city streets. Humans make mistakes. Streets can be redesigned for safety and compensate for human imperfection. Those are the key premises of Vision Zero, which we wrote about last February. A year later, we are encouraged to see that Vision Zero is […]
In the recent B.C. Court of appeal decision of Barta v. DaSilva[1] the court was asked to consider whether a mild traumatic brain injury suffered by a securities trader in a motor vehicle accident caused him to make poor financial investments which resulted in $5 million of losses. In this case, the Plaintiff Barta, was […]
For those Ontario workers who have Workplace Safety Insurance Board (WSIB) claims arising from a workplace accident, the process of submitting a claim can be confusing and difficult at the best of times. This is especially true if the claim is ultimately denied as an unfavourable outcome only adds “insult to injury” as the old […]
A recent case concerning long term disability benefits addressed the interesting issue of whether the imitation period for commencing an action against a disability insurer starts on the date the benefits are cut off or only after the insurer definitively advises that an insured’s ongoing claim is being denied? In Pepper v. Sanmina-Sci Systems (Canada) […]
The Toronto Sun newspaper recently reported on a case in which an auto insurer had used particularly aggressive tactics to defend a claim brought by a young woman who had endured catastrophic injuries during a rear-end vehicle collision when she was only 17 years old. As described in the Sun article, the arbitration lasted 16 […]
As temperatures in Ontario drop, slip-and-fall incidents unfortunately increase. However, whether falls occurs indoors or out, there are some important steps that you must take after a slip-and-fall to preserve your legal rights. These steps are important in case you decide to pursue an action for damages against anyone who may have been responsible for […]
In a recent Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance (WSI) benefits claim case1, the 34-year old worker’s left hand had been seriously injured on-the-job, and he had lost all four fingers and the tip of his thumb. When it came time to determining his WSI benefits, the issue was whether it should be calculated based on […]
In a recent WSIB Appeals Tribunal case Decision No. 1599/17, 2017 ONWSIAT 2025, a 59-year old electrician attended at his doctor’s office on October 5, 2011, complaining of injuries he had sustained in a workplace accident the day before and indicated that he had fallen off a ladder when installing a pot light in a […]
Any person who makes a claim for Canada Pension Plan (CPP) disability benefits must supply medical evidence that he or she has a “disability” which is “severe and prolonged”. This is routinely done through expert evidence provided by a qualified, impartial doctor to whom the claimant has been referred by other treating physicians. Essentially, this […]
For those who have been involved in a motor vehicle accident and are dealing with an insurer, it may be reassuring to know that under Canadian law, an insurer has a legally-established duty of “good faith” towards its insured. This is because the relationship between an insurer and the insured is determined and governed by […]