Articles Posted in Car Accident

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In school, you’re not taught what to do after a serious car accident. There is no course or classroom lesson. This is something which people will learn from friends, family members, lawyers, reading, or through life experience.

While car accidents happen everyday,  the same people aren’t involved in car accidents everyday. They are the exception, and not the norm for individuals. But, the opposite is true for insurance companies. They handle hundreds of calls a day, and thousands of cases each year across the country. Handling car insurance cases is part of their business model. They are familiar with the ins, and outs, and what has to get done in order to process a claim and see it through.

Our personal injury lawyers have seen that people want advice in their time of need right after a car accident. They don’t know where to turn, what to do, or who to trust. Innocent accident victims are shaken up, and in a vulnerable state. They want to trust their insurance company to given them advice, and to point them in the right direction. But, the insurer has their best interests in mind, and not yours. They will try to set up the claim in such a way as to best limit their exposure in an effort to maximize their profits. So, injured accident victims need to beware, and take everything which the insurance company says with a grain of salt (or a large mound of it). The relationship between injured accident victim and insurance adjuster can get off on the right foot, but can quickly sour thereafter. A few denials here and there. An assessment with an “independent” specialist to justify a denied treatment plan. Things can get messy really quickly. Here are some quick tips on things to avoid with your insurance company following a serious car accident:

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Most people around the Golden Horseshoe Area of Ontario woke up Sunday morning to snow. It was the first snowfall of the season. Normally, the first snow fall is just a warning shot. It snows; and it’s pretty. And very quickly, the snow melts away without causing any chaos. It’s a reminder to make our vehicles, our homes and ourselves “winter ready“. This means a mad rush to buy salt or sand for our driveways and walkways, getting our snow tires on our vehicles; having winter clothes and winter boots (which fit; especially for the children); making sure our vehicles have proper levels of antifreeze and windshield washer fluid (the stuff that works well in the winter); installing winter mats to our vehicles, homes and places of business and any other preparation that suits your needs for the winter weather. It’s quite a transition going from “this weather is tolerable” to “I don’t want to leave the house because it’s cold and yucky outside”.

After the first snowfall of the year, our law firm gets a lot of accident calls. Whether they are slip and fall calls, or car accident calls; we tend to see a lot more accidents after the first snowfall of the year. I have a lot of theories behind this. But, the primary theory always comes down to the fact that people aren’t ready for the first snowfall. They either forgot about how to deal with driving or simply walking in winter weather conditions. Or, they are new to dealing with winter weather conditions. If you are new to Canada, and coming from a country that doesn’t experience snow, ice or slush; then driving or just walking in your first snowfall is new and you don’t have the experience of handling these conditions. The other part of the equation is that people are taken by surprise by the first snowfall. They don’t have their winter boots ready. Their snow tires aren’t on their vehicles so they are sliding all over the roads. Finally, the city’s snow plows and salt trucks are ready, but they really aren’t in a winter maintenance grove because it’s their first time needing to be dispatched for the season. When you haven’t done something for a while (like trucks/snow plows sitting idle in a yard all year long), getting back into the swing of things can take time.

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You will often hear personal injury lawyers refer to the term “tort“, or “tort case”, or “tort claim” or “tort law”. But what is a tort anyways? Here is a quick breakdown.

Torte: Noun: a yummy and rich, often multilayered cake that can be made with little to no flour, using ground nuts or bread crumbs instead. These cakes are typically filled with ingredients like whipped cream, buttercream, jam, or fruit. Many traditional tortes, such as the Sachertorte and Linzer torte, have Austrian or German origins. Torte cakes are not legal terms. They are delicious deserts which make for wonderful housewarming presents. 

Torts: Person: John Tortorella aka “Torts” (born June 24, 1958) is an American professional ice hockey coach and former player. He most recently served as head coach for the Philadelphia Flyers of the National Hockey League (NHL). Tortorella has also been the head coach of the NHL’s New York Rangers, Tampa Bay Lightning, Vancouver Canucks and Columbus Blue Jackets. He led Tampa Bay to the 2004 Stanley Cup championship. I do not recommend bringing Tort with you into the Courtroom for a personal injury case. While I believe that he’s a great guy, and would make for a tenacious advocate, his expertise trends more towards hockey rather than personal injury litigation.

Tort: Noun: Legal: is a wrongful act other than a breach of contract for which relief may be obtained in the form of damages or an injunction. An act of injury or damage to a person or property that is covered by a law, so that the person can start a court action. Ontario car accident cases are divided into two cases: The Accident Benefit Part and the Tort Part. The Tort claim is the claim against the at fault driver who caused the accident in the first place. You will hear your personal injury lawyer describe this as the “Tort Claim” or the “Tort Case” or the “Tort Action“. Not to be confused with Torte (the delicious cake described above) or Torts, the Stanley Cup winning hockey coach described above. You can see how people can get confused!

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I was watching the film All The President’s Men from 1976. It stars Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Carl Bernstein and Paul Woodward (Woodward and Bernstein) as the two Wash Post journalists who broke the Watergate Scandal involving President Richard Nixon. I was watching the moving because Robert Redford passed away last month, and I wanted to watch (re-watch) some of his work.

So much was different with the 70’s. The attire. The hardwire rotary dial phones (with multiple lines in fancy offices). The fact that people picked up their phones. If people were away from their desks, there were no answering machines. You would leave a message with a receptionist, and she (back then it was always a she) would leave the person a note (almost always on yellow paper) to call the person back.

What amazed me of Woodward and Bernstein was how easily they were able to access information, and how few barriers there existed back then to obtaining background information in those days. There are many more privacy barriers when it comes to access to information today.

In one scene, they attend at a library in Washington and they’re able to see instantaneously the names telephone numbers, addresses and amounts of all donors tied to the Democratic Party to elect the next President. With that hot list of contacts in hand, they’re able to knock door to door, or make cold calls. People actually either answered the door, or answered the phones to speak with these guys. Getting this sort of personal information so easily is almost unheard of these days. Getting people to cooperate with you is just as rare.

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There are some great ways which Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help personal injury lawyers run their practice and help their clients.

But, there are some major pitfalls to leaning too heavily on AI.

Lawyers who use artificial intelligence the wrong way will get punished. I am reminded of the decision of Ko v. Li, 2025 ONSC 2965 (CanLII) where the lawyer included in her factum references to several non-existent or fake precedent court cases. In her oral argument in open court the lawyer relied on two non-existent precedent cases from her factum.

The problem came to light during the hearing when the Judge could not find any reference online to the cases relied upon by the lawyer as applicable precedents to state the law.
When questioned by the judge, the lawyer was unable to advise whether her factum had been prepared using generative artificial intelligence or whether the cases she listed in her factum and relied upon orally were “hallucinations” fabricated by an AI platform.
This is a bad use of AI. There will be no substitute for a lawyer reviewing the work being submitted to the Court. The lawyer is ultimately responsible. “The Buck Stops Here“.
Lawyers can use AI to prepare all sorts of pleadings and documents, but, if those lawyers don’t check the work being submitted, they are doing so at their own peril.

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There are so many tall tales in personal injury law. Things which you hear from your friends, family, therapists, neighbours, acquaintances, or random people in your community are so far off from the reality of what actually happens behind the scenes, and the work involved in a personal injury case.

The only people who really know what happens, and how things happened are the lawyers themselves.

There are a lot of reasons for this.

For starters, personal injury cases deal with new litigants, who are unfamiliar with personal injury cases, or how the law works. This is completely normal as for the majority of clients, it’s their first time hiring a personal injury lawyer, or a lawyer all together. When you are new to litigation, it’s hard to understand how things get done. It’s perfectly ok to be a first time litigant. In fact, if you’re a multiple time litigant for a personal injury case, it will give your lawyer cause for concern. You must be terribly unlucky, finding yourself repeatedly in the wrong place, at the wrong time. You will also likely have an extensive pre-accident history which will invariably come up in your personal injury case.

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When an international student or a visitor to Canada has a serious accident in Ontario, it can get very complicated.

Who will pay for the medical treatment? The hospital visits? The ambulance? The out of pocket expenses? What about the loss of opportunity to pursue their studies, or the wage loss from a part time job?

These are really hard questions, and all depend on the facts of the case, along with the coverage of the injured party.

For starters, people in Canada on Student Visas, or a Visitors Permit won’t have access to the publicly funded OHIP system, the same way that Canadian Resident will. This is why it’s so important for the student or visitor to Canada to make sure that they have proper health care coverage before they come to Canada.

Having bad insurance will end up in a less desirable result. Just because an insurance plan is the cheapest, doesn’t mean that it’s the best. Often, you get what you pay for. Nobody ever expects to be involved in a serious accident, but if one happens, it sure helps to have a responsive and supportive insurer; rather than an insurance company which is the habit of denying claims, or being non-responsive to their insured.

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Ontario Courts, along with the civil litigation process are governed by a complex set of rules. These rules are made by people who have an understanding of how the law works, how cases work, and what problems our civil justice system is facing, and how those problems should be addressed.

Every once in a while, the rules are examined and tweaked, in order to better administer civil justice and help the system operate more efficiently.

The Civil Rules Review (CRR) was launched in January 2024, under the leadership of Co-Chairs Justice Cary Boswell of the Superior Court of Justice and a partner at a law firm. The mandate of the CRR is to conduct a comprehensive and complete review of the Rules and identify, through consultation, areas where targeted changes to the Rules would increase efficiency and access to justice for Ontarians, reduce complexity and costs, maximize the effective use of court resources, reduce delay, and leverage technical solutions.

The CRR Group has made a lot of recommendations, which, in my opinion, fail to achieve the goals set out by the CRR. In fact, what these recommendations will bring will be greater injustice to Plaintiffs seeking justice through the civil justice system. The proposed reforms favour Defendants, who need not work hard to advance a claim. It will embolden Defendants to sit back, and really not do much until absolutely necessary to do so.

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Let’s say that you get involved in a car accident during the course of your employment. What do you do? Who can you sue? Is it a WSIB claim? Is it a car accident case? Or is it both?

This issue comes up a lot in the practice of a personal injury lawyer, who does a lot of car accident work.

Let’s make something very clear. You cannot both claim WSIB benefits and sue, and claim accident benefits at the same time.

You you only pick one route. That decision, is called an “election“.

The Plaintiff can either “elect” to receive WSIB benefits and go the WSIB route.

Or the Plaintiff can opt out of WSIB, and “elect” to receive accident benefits, and go the suing route.

The Plaintiff cannot go both routes.

Sometimes, a Plaintiff does not have a choice and must go through the WSIB route. Here is an example of such a case:

The Plaintiff is driving his/her company car enroute to a jobsite. The Plaintiff gets involved in a terrible car accident. The car accident is not the Plaintiff’s fault, and the Plaintiff wants to sue the at fault driver for his/her damages and pain and suffering. But, as it turns out, the at fault driver was also driving a company car for a job. Both parties were deemed to be Schedule 1 employees who were in the course of their employment at the time of the car accident. Even though the parties worked for two completely different and unrelated employers, the fact that both were in the course of their employment at the time of the car accident is significant and presents a barrier to personal injury litigation. The reason is that the law says that a Schedule 1 employee in the course of his/her employment cannot sue another Schedule 1 employee who was also in the course of his/her employment (even for a car accident case!).  As a result, even though the Plaintiff may want to go the personal injury litigation route, s/he cannot do so. WSIB acts as a shield protecting the employers (and the at fault driver) from any litigation. The injured accident victim has no choice but to pursue WSIB benefits. The injured accident victim can try to advance a claim for damages against the at fault driver; but the case will in all likelihood get kicked out of Court on Application to the WSIB.

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Last week I was interviewed by a journalist at the Globe & Mail newspaper (remember those?).

She was writing an article on car insurance, and increasing insurance rates in general in Ontario. She wanted to know what a boots on the ground personal injury lawyer was seeing.

I shared with her a few trends which I had observed over the past 12 months:

  1. Premiums were rising for drivers even if they had outstanding driving records with no claims
  2. Part of the reason which premiums appeared to be on the rise was the increase of auto thefts; coupled with the rise in prices for new vehicles, labour and auto parts. I suspect that the looming tariffs and trade war won’t help in that area. Some reports are suggesting that the price of new cars will go up between 15-25%
  3. But don’t fool yourself: insurance companies will find every excuse in the books to increase premiums. They will deliver less coverage, while charging you more money. You are paying more, and getting less in return.
  4. Our personal injury lawyers have noticed an uptick in uninsured claims.

What is an uninsured claim you might ask? Good question!

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