Articles Posted in Uncategorized

Some injuries are visible to the naked eye. Someone in a wheelchair with a broken limb. A bandage. A crutch. A walker. A cast or a cane. All of these things are plainly visible and send a strong message to the world that a person is hurt, injured and not at their best. These sort of visible injuries are easy to understand, plainly visible to people from all walks of life and from  diverse backgrounds. It doesn’t take a medical expert or a skilled personal injury lawyer to help a judge and jury understand that we have an injured party involved in the case at hand.

In contrast, the vast majority of injuries are invisible to the naked eye. You cannot see chronic pain. You cannot see fibromyalgia. You cannot see anxiety, depression, post traumatic stress disorder, suicidal ideation, or plain misery. Perhaps you can see an unhappy look on one’s face. But simply because someone appears to be unhappy does not necessarily mean that they are suffering from a serious personal injury or disability. Perhaps they are just having a bad day.

The purpose of this edition of the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog is to focus on those invisible injuries which insurers love to deny, discount and minimize. In particular, we will focus on fibromyalgia and depression which often go hand in hand. And which are two injuries/disabilities which both auto insurers and long term disability insurers love to deny and discount.

If you are suffering from fibromyalgia or depression, don’t lose hope or give up! Stay strong. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Your injuries and disabilities are legitimate despite what the insurance company and their hired gun doctors might say. The insurance company wants you to become reclusive so that you don’t commence an action to get the compensation you deserve. If you do nothing, you will get nothing and the insurance company will win. But if you have the strength and courage to take the first step and to reach out to a personal injury lawyer; you are taking a step in the right direction. Don’t give up. Don’t lose hope.

Continue reading →

Good timing can mean the difference between a winning personal injury case, and a losing personal injury case. In fact; timing can also spell the difference between being involved in a serious accident; and missing a serious accident.

Accident victims aren’t looking to get into accidents in the first place. They are simply in the wrong place, at the wrong time. But for some serendipitous timing and bad luck, they would not have been involved in an accident in the first place. Hence, they would not need the assistance of a personal injury lawyer. But accidents much like bad luck and bad timing happens. That’s life.

At law, there are limitation periods. This means that an injured accident victim cannot wait forever, or wait too long to retain a personal injury lawyer and start their claim. Waiting too long to get the legal process started has consequences.

Defendants will argue that waiting too long is unfair. Lawyers will call that unfairness prejudice. You will often hear from Defence lawyers that the delay is “prejudicial to their clients” because of reasons A, B and C. Sometimes this is true. Other times, it’s legal mumbo jumbo for they just want to get the case dismissed on account of delay.

Here’s a case where there can be prejudice to a Defendant for delay:

The Plaintiff waits so long to start their case that evidence is destroyed, witnesses can’t be tracked down or if they are, their memories of the events have faded, and investigations by a Defendant cannot be made until it’s fall too late. That’s certainly fair. Continue reading →

Each year our law firm sees a spike in calls immediately after the Canada Day Long Weekend. We expect this long weekend to be no different. The combination of long summer nights, alcohol, drugs and long weekend excitement can lead to some pretty dangerous situations which we should all hope to avoid.

While we have done iterations of this post in previous years, the safety tips are worth repeating. Some here are some old tips, and some new ones based on recent observations and queries from our intake of calls from across Ontario. Some of these tips may surprise you; while others are common sense. The thing with common sense is that it’s not so common; and sometimes it doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense to people.

Continue reading →

The clashes taking place in Washington DC earlier today got me thinking about assault cases. It’s a mess what’s happening there.

We have seen a spike in calls during the pandemic with regard to physical violence. I can tell you there’s a lot of rage inside and outside homes. People are fed up of being locked down and are either taking matters in to their own hands, or taking out their frustrations on other people (family and strangers a like).

Goldfinger Injury Lawyers certainly doesn’t endorse the use of violence. Victims of violence often call our law firm to get the compensation which the deserve.

The problem however with these types of assault cases is recovering money on behalf of our clients. This is a very common problem in assault cases and I will share with you why in today’s instalment of the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog.

Continue reading →

Long Term Disability claims aren’t simple.

I wish they were, but they just aren’t.

The amount of money you are entitled to is based entirely on your age, income, the set offs you are receiving or have received in the past, and what your long term disability policy says about the duration and quantum of benefits payable.

Are the benefits taxable or not?

Are the benefits eligible for COLA indexing?

Does the definition of disability change at the two year mark from your “own occupation” to “any occupation” or was an “own occupation” rider purchased under the policy?

Is there a means test under the Policy and if so, what is the percentage of income or income allowable?

Each long term disability policy is different.

There is no “master policy” for every employee out there. While some policies may look the same; they carry different nuances which often translate to very large differences.

When a group of employees has access to a variety of collateral benefits; things like private or public pensions (old age or disability); HOOP Benefits; OMERS Benefits; CPP; other disability benefits, vacation pay, sick pay, union benefits etc. things get complicated fast.

The more benefits available, the more complex the case.

Continue reading →

We like keeping our posts in tune with current events here at the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog. We do our best to relate topics in personal injury law to current events as best we can. Sometimes global or local news themes dovetail nicely with personal injury law and how Courts work.

So for this instalment of the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog, we thought it very interesting to discuss the American Presidential Election, and how it relates to personal injury law.

One of the most common complaints hear about the candidates for President; Donald Trump and Joe Biden; is that they lie, stretch the truth, or take liberties with the truth.

This is done so much that reporters have made careers out of fact checking politicians like Donald Trump. Toronto’s very own Daniel Dale leap frogged from local reporter at the Toronto Star, to Washington correspondent at the Toronto Star; to chief fact checker of Donal Trump at CNN and now has 1.1 million Twitter Followers. 

This is the very same Daniel Dale who received an apology from the late Toronto Mayor Rob Ford over some comments which were later proven to be false.

To go from reporting on the Mayor of the City of Toronto all the way to fact checking the Leader of the Free World in the President of the United States is a huge jump. And Mr. Dale paved his way reporting on the President of the United States by doing one simple thing right; fact checking to report the truth.

Continue reading →

Slip and falls can happen anywhere, at anytime.

Unlike a car accident case, the police don’t come to the scene of a slip and fall to record what happened; or to ticket the at fault party.

That’s very important because in a car accident case, the information regarding liability (the who, where, what, when and why) is recorded by the police. This information is later used by the parties and the Court to place the particulars of the accident in to context. The accident report is relied upon and generally weighed upon by the Court to understand how, where and when the accident happened.

The same cannot be said for a slip and fall case. There is no accident report. There is no recording by independent third party witnesses. There is no accident reconstruction.

Somtimes where a slip and fall happens in a monitored private space (like a supermarket, or a shopping mall) an employee or security guard may record an incident report. Sometimes a video camera may capture the fall itself. But more often than not, this doesn’t happen. And when it does happen, these incident reports are taken by employees, agents, contractors or servants of the defendant property owner. They have an inherent bias towards their employer or contractor to absolve them of liability. Those incident reports won’t favour the accident victim. They will be prepared in such a way as to favour the property owner which isn’t good news for the injured Plaintiff.

Continue reading →

You know what people hate? Jury duty.

Civic duty? Yes.

Sense of national pride and feeling like you’re contributing to society? Sure.

But there are likely 1001 things you’d rather be doing other than sitting on a jury. Particularly for a personal injury case.

As stated previously in the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog; most jurors want to sit on a high profile murder or drug case. Nobody every wants to sit jury duty for a personal injury case hearing all day how a Plaintiff’s neck; back and shoulders hurt them.

Insurance companies know this.

So as a reflex, they file Jury Notices simultaneously with their Statements of Defence knowing that an angry jury; a bored jury; or a day dreaming jury is going to relent the Plaintiff and it will reflect in their decision.

Continue reading →