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Recently in the news, a Windsor Ontario doctor was disciplined for over prescribing opioid medication. His license to practice medicine was revoked. This was the first disciplinary case of its kind involving the over prescribing of opioid medication where the doctor lost his license to practice medicine.

Also recently, the government of British Columbia launched the first law suit of its kind against opioid manufacturers and distributors alleging that the drugs created more negatives and burdens for the health care industry than benefits.

The trend is that opioid medication is bad. Personal Injury lawyers see this trend on the front lines with respect to how their clients react to opioid medication. Times are certainly changing and medication trends are heading in a different direction. They are trending towards cannabis.

It used to be that smoking cannabis for chronic pain was taboo. Pot smokers were frowned upon by the Courts, insurers and jurors thinking that the smoker was masking their smoking habit just to get high. The disingenuous comment “I need to smoke pot for my pain” was very common and was sneered upon.

With the recent crack downs on opioid medication, and a better understanding of the potential harms which opioid medication can cause; more people (and doctors) are seeking out alternative remedies. Enter medical cannabis.

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Fact: Goldfinger Injury Lawyers receives a spike in phone calls from prospective clients both during, and after the Labour Day Long Weekend.

Fact: The majority of these calls come from injured accident victims and their loved ones inquiring about their personal injury claims as a consequence of somebody’s negligence which took place over the long weekend.

Fact: The majority of these accidents and resulting injuries are avoidable. Often times, these injury claims arise on account of mental errors, errors in judgment, or just bad behaviour.

Here’s what you need to know heading in to the Labour Day Long Weekend from the perspective of a personal injury lawyer who has seen a few things…

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Goldfinger Injury Lawyers handle methadone overdose cases, and other cases involving pharmacist negligence.

You might ask: how can this ever happen?

If someone has a prescription, it gets filled with the right drug and the right dosage; and that should be the end of it.

But mistakes happen. And they happen more than you think.

And when those mistakes happen, people can get really sick, or even worse, die.

There is a very negative stigma surrounding overdose cases. People who take illegal drugs are frowned upon. The need for methadone to manage a pre-existing addiction problem has been stigmatized.

This is why coming forward is no easy task. Doctors, family members, nurses and members of the general public often have no sympathy, empathy or understanding for what these people are going through.

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Last week’s entry of the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog entitled “How Ontario Car Accident Cases and Pain and Suffering awards work in a Nutshell received resounding positive feedback from our readers. They appreciated how complicated legal terms and concepts were broken down in easy to understand English. This is something our law firm prides itself on.

We understand that most of our clients are NOT sophisticated lawyers with years and years of technical legal training. Most of our clients are everyday people, who have not studied law.

We do our best to make things simple to understand. Why should a car accident case, or long term disability case be spoken about like it’s rocket science? The more our clients understand, the better the lawyer-client relationship.

In that vein, we continue with our “nutshell series“. This installment will focus on how Long Term Disability cases work; along with some of the most commonly asked questions about LTD cases from our clients. If you require more information about long term disability cases, please don’t hesitate to contact Goldfinger Injury Lawyers toll free at 1-877-730-1777 or at info@goldfingerlaw.com for your free and confidential consultation.

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In law school, lawyers are taught to sue parties with deep pockets.

Suing a Defendant who is without assets will net you a limited or a nil return. You can’t get blood from a stone.

Understanding this concept is important to understanding how car accident cases work in Ontario. But there is much more than meets the eye.

In this “nutshell” series of the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog, we take a quick examination of how exactly car accident cases w0rk in Ontario, and what to expect.

Ontario has a very strange system of car insurance. When explained to a lay person, Ontario’s no fault accident benefit and tort system for car accident claims sounds backwards:

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*UPDATED RELEASE (July 31, 2018)

Brian Goldfinger’s Legal Advertising Case Concluded

TORONTO: A resolution reached on June 20, 2018 between ‎lawyer Brian Goldfinger and the regulator of Ontario’s legal profession has resulted in new case law that will aid lawyers in navigating the rules that govern lawyer advertising.

A resolution agreement that was initially presented to a panel of adjudicators at the Law Society of Ontario Tribunal on June 20, 2018, stated that some of Mr. Goldfinger’s advertising constituted “misconduct” under the Law Society’s rules, but that it was neither dishonest nor intentionally deceptive.

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The purpose of this entry of the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog is to focus on a rather long personal injury case called Davies v. The Corporation of the Municipality of Clarington.

This is the case about a Via Trail derailment on what should have been a routine trip from Toronto to Montreal on November 23, 1999.

100+ passengers claimed injuries by way of class action.

Liability was sorted out by way of class action by way of trial in 2007.

But what wasn’t sorted out was the quantification of damages for one injured passenger; Christopher Zuber. Injuries, causation and the quantification of damages was the focus of this trial.

Mr. Zuber’s personal injury case in its entirety lasted around 17 years.

The trial took around 26 weeks (approximately 107 days to complete). It is believed this was the longest single personal injury jury trial in Ontario Court history (but we have no real concrete stats on it).

Here are some comments from the Honourable Justice Edwards about this case which speak for themselves on what it takes to suceed in a personal injury case, along with the state of modern personal injury litigation in Ontario. These comments are worth noting for any personal injury lawyer, or for any member of the general public with an active personal injury case on the go in Ontario. The comments of the Honourable Justice Edwards are also important to understanding how personal injury cases work, and are assessed in Ontario. Keep in mind, these are direct quotes from the Judge in this decision.

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One of Brian Goldfinger’s very first personal injury cases which drew media attention was a dog bite case out of Toronto.

This tragic case was covered  by the Globe & Mail. The headline of the newspaper read “Man charged in fatal pitbull attack on dog“.

The dog attack took place a decade ago, and to their credit, the Globe & Mail article was updated on April 26, 2018 (responsible journalism); likely to include the following paragraph reflecting changes in the law surrounding pit bull ownership in Ontario:

Pit bulls have been banned in Ontario since November, 2005. However, dogs that were in the province before the ban may be kept, provided the owner has them sterilized. They must be leashed and muzzled at all times when in public.

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The word trust, in a non legal sense is defined as “the firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something.”

In the context of a personal injury case, there are times where trust can be a good thing; and times when it can be a very bad thing.

The purpose of this week’s edition of the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog Post is to give you some first hand examples from Brian Goldfinger on when it’s a good time to trust, and when it’s not such a good time to trust in the context of your personal injury case.

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Toronto has seen a spike in pedestrian/car and bike/car accidents. Toronto has also seen a spike in fatality claims arising from such accidents. Vision Zero is a multi-national road traffic safety project that aims to achieve a highway system with no fatalities or serious injuries involving road traffic. Vision Zero has been implemented in Toronto, but its objectives have not been met. The goals are ambitious, and failure to reach those goals is a “good try“. Harsher critics would call it a failure.

Fatality claims on Toronto Roads have hit such a crisis point that City Council voted unanimously to double this year’s road safety budget in light of recent cyclist and pedestrian deaths and public outcry. An additional $22 million in annual municipal spending will go towards accomplishing Vision Zero goals in the City of Toronto. This more than doubles the initial budget of Vision Zero, which had been set at around 21.3 million.

We can all agree that nobody should be seriously injured, or killed while using our streets either as a motorist, cyclist, or pedestrian. Our streets should be safe; and the fear of getting run over by a car shouldn’t run rampant in your mind when out and about trying to enjoy city life in Toronto.

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