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If you’ve been seriously hurt or injured in an accident; or you’ve been denied long term disability benefits by your insurer, you will likely need to retain a lawyer.

But, not just any lawyer. You will need a personal injury lawyer. Here are some quick tips on what to look for when selecting a personal injury lawyer:

  1. Make sure that they practice personal injury law exclusively! Don’t get a lawyer who dabbles in the odd personal injury or LTD matter. If you needed brain surgery, would you get a surgeon who does the occasional brain surgery, or would you want a brain surgeon who concentrates exclusively on brain surgery? The answer is obvious. Getting a so called “dabbler” is a recipe for disaster. Your case is too important to be messing around with.
  2. Does your personal injury lawyer actually do the work, or is your file being referred out of house? Do you want your lawyer referring your file elsewhere, or do you want your personal injury lawyer to be doing the work? If your file is being referred elsewhere, are you being charged a referral fee upon recovery which comes out of your award? If so, how much is that referral fee? If I were an injured accident victim, I would ensure that the lawyer who I retained was in fact doing the work which s/he was retained to do and not a law firm who I’ve never met with or heard of.
  3. Make sure you’re meeting with a lawyer, and not a “runner”: We have heard horror stories of accident victims in hospital who have been approached by people who represent themselves to be lawyers, when they aren’t. These people try to get unsuspecting accident victims and their families to sign paper work so that they can bill the insurer for services, or so that they can take their cases to law firms or paralegals to being working on their files. Our law firm has reported such incidents to the Financial Services Commission Fraud Hotline . Sadly, not much has come of our tips to the fraud hotline other than a few investigations which didn’t go anywhere for reasons unbeknownst to us. In any event, be weary of non lawyers posing as lawyer trying to get you to sign on the dotted line.

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It has been a busy week at Goldfinger Injury Lawyers, and we have some exciting news to share with the readership of the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog.

We’re excited to announce the hiring of a new lawyer, Afsoun Amirsolaimani. Afsoun comes to us having graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa, and articled at a boutique personal injury law firm in Hamilton. She gained valuable experience in car accident, slip and fall, accident benefits, dog bite and long term disability claims. Outside of work, Afsoun is a fantastic amateur photographer. We are confident that Afsoun will bring her enthusiasm, dedication and passion for justice to our law firm in order to better serve our clients across Ontario. 

Another important announcement is that our Toronto Office has expanded! Yet again! This is our 4th office expansion in Toronto over the past 9 years. Please don’t get the impression that our law firm are bad tenants. It’s just that our law firm has been growing year after year, and we need to increase our space in order to accommodate our needs. We have been able to grow by serving our clients as best we can. Growing one satisfied client at a time. We aren’t going anywhere far. Same building at Yonge/Sheppard. Same floor. Just larger space. We’re still accessible off of Highway 401 at Yonge Street and also accessible via two subway lines. We’re also steps away from OHIP, ODSP, FSCO along with two Court Reporter’s Offices which is very convenient for our lawyers and clients alike. Our law firm is handicap accessible. What’s not to like about Yonge and Sheppard?

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The most serious types of motor vehicle accidents in Ontario are referred to as “catastrophic“, or “CAT” cases.

Just because the accident is bad, doesn’t necessarily make that the accident is “catastrophic“.

Just because the injuries are serious, also doesn’t make the accident “catastrophic“.

The term “catastrophic” carries a very specific medico-legal definition. It’s a term of art. This definition has been tinkered with throughout the years, over and over again. That’s how important it is for any car accident case.

Currently, in Ontario, in order for your car accident case to be defined as “catastrophic“, your doctor or specialist must find on an OCF-19 Application for Determination of Catastrophic Benefits Form which certifies that your injuries meet one of the following criteria:

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Bad accidents happen all the time. Long Term Disability denials too.

It’s a common misconception that one’s case begins the moment that the claimant retains a personal injury lawyer. This is completely wrong. One’s case begins long before that. And, it’s important for a potential claimant to know that their actions will be scrutinized long before a Statement of Claim or Demand Letter has been prepared by your personal injury lawyer.

A Plaintiff’s job is to make a claim, and push that claim to trial. A Plaintiff is required to steer the litigation, and push the pace of the case. Like driving a car. If your lawyer doesn’t drive the car in the right direction, then nobody will.

A Defendant on the other hand can do the exact opposite and delay the action. Justice delayed is justice denied. A Defendant can conversely push an aggressive defence and proactively attempt to have the claim roadblocked before it ever sees a trial by way of motioning the claim to death.

A Plaintiff is required to do all of the asking,  pushing, document gathering and demanding. Think of the personal injury lawyer as the builder of a castle. They need all of the resources and materials to build a stable structure. Think of a defence lawyer as the party which seeks to tear the castle down, brick by brick. Which brings me to my next point.

Frequently, our lawyers get calls from injured accident victims and LTD Claimants who, even though they don’t have a lawyer, haven’t yet taken the very most basic steps to advance a claim which don’t require legal advice or counsel.

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Recently, the Ontario Divisional Court released their decision in Gilbert’s LLP v. David Dixon Inc., 2017 ONSC 1345. The Honourable Justice Nordheimer, speaking for the Court had some pointed commentary with respect to the Solicitors Act and its application in 2017. The Solicitors Act goes back to 1909 England. The language contained therein is antiquated, and hard to understand; even for the most astute personal injury lawyer or Judge.

The Solicitor’s Act governs how lawyers bill and collect legal fees. This decision is important as the story of lawyers’ fees, particularly in the context of personal injury claims, has been all over the news lately.

Here’s what the Honourable Justice Nordheimer had to say about the Solicitors Act:

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Today, the Federal Government called for tougher penalties, along with increased national uniformity when it comes to distracted driving. This call to arms was long overdue. Our personal injury lawyers can tell you that distracted driving has been a problem since at least 2004, if not earlier. Think of all of the car accidents that have happened since 2004 across Canada….Disturbing if you look at the stats. I suspect that a lot of those accidents were non-reported distracted driving accidents. Law enforcement just takes time to catch on to the trends. Distracted driving in many ways, is also more difficult to prove than drunk driving. More on that later.

Distracted driving is NOT drunk driving. Drunk driving is covered under the Criminal Code of Canada. It’s a uniform definition across the country.

Distracted driving on the other hand is defined and covered under provincial legislation. That means what’s described as distracted driving in one province, can be different in another province.

In Ontario, holding your mobile device, even if you’re not looking at it, while operating your vehicle can be interpreted as distracted driving:

In Ontario, it’s against the law to:

  • operate hand-held communication and electronic entertainment devices while you’re driving
  • view display screens unrelated to your driving

Examples of hand-held devices include:

  • iPods and MP3 players
  • GPS
  • cell phones
  • smart phones
  • laptops
  • DVD players

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If you have applied for Long Term Disability Benefits with a private LTD insurer such as SunLife, Manulife, Great West Life, Industrial Alliance, SSQ, Co-Operators, Empire Life, RBC Insurance, La Capitale Insurance, BMO Insurance; and had your claim denied, then this is the article you need to read.

It’s important to know that in order to recover a Long Term Disability Benefit from one of these insurers, you first need to APPLY for it. Just sitting around and waiting for a cheque to roll in is a pipe dream. Insurers won’t pay a benefit, unless you’ve taken the time to complete the paper work (properly), and then submit it.

If don’t apply for the LTD benefit, I can assure you that you won’t get approved.

If you wait too long to apply for the LTD benefit, I can assure you that your claim will get denied for delay. Many LTD policies contain clauses that the LTD benefit must be applied for within a certain  period of time. Failure to make a timely application is grounds for an LTD insurer to deny your claim. If you take the time to read the fine print of your Long Term Disability Policy, you will see plenty of clauses which are drafted in favour of the large, deep pocketed insurer, instead of in the favour of the individual policy holder (a person like you and me).

None of this seems fair; but it isn’t intended to be fair. Keep in mind; an insurance policy is a product designed by an insurer to make money. If these policies weren’t profitable, I can assure you that insurers would not put them out there for the public to buy. Continue reading →

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Medical experts, along with their reports, are major pieces of evidence in any serious personal injury case in Ontario.

The testimony of a Plaintiff, and that of a Defendant, will likely be self serving.

The Injured Accident Victim Plaintiff will take the stand and provide evidence that the accident was not their fault, and as a result of the accident; that they are seriously injured and can no longer lead a normal life.

The Defendant in a personal injury case will say the exact opposite. The accident was not their fault, and that the Plaintiff did not appear to be injured at all in the accident.

With testimony which is so diametrically opposed; how is a Judge or Jury supposed to decide who is telling the truth? Certainly the credibility and likeability of the parties comes in to play. But there is another major factor as well.

That’s where medical experts come enter the scene. These are often doctors, hired by the Plaintiff’s lawyer, or the Defendant’s lawyer to provide expert testimony or evidence in support of the case, one way of the other. The testimony of these experts, along with the evidence which they tender in to Court can be very persuasive. It’s often the difference between a successful or unsuccessful case. The battle of experts is very real, and it’s very important in a personal injury case.

Medico-legal experts in the context of personal injury cases have come under fire in recent months. A National Post story entitled “Hired Gun in a Lab Coat: How Medical Experts Help Car Insurers Fight Accident Claims” is a fantastic read which sheds some light on how the business of medico-legal experts plays out.

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Personal Injury Lawyer Brian Goldfinger drew inspiration for the proceeding entry of the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog from Nick, famous YouTube Star of wildly entertaining, and super high quality Pokemon GO! channel; Trainer Tips. Check out his channel if you haven’t already.

Shout out to Nick for all of the hard work he does uploading daily videos to his channel. The guy doesn’t mail in his entries. The production quality on his YouTube channel is top notch. While his channel deals with the game Pokemon GO!, he also covers such topics as food, travel and general life tips.

Nick has raised thousands of dollars for tsunami relief in Japan through his channel and has entertained/educated, hundreds of thousands of people all over the world. He has close to 600,000 subscribers for a Pokemon GO! channel which is remarkable, even though he believes that his numbers are going down (through no fault of his own…that’s on Niantic!)

In addition, the makers of Pokemon GO! (Niantic) have been rather lame with respect to updating the game, and failing to release new content (Generation Two). This has resulted in a slow down of game play, and a slow down in interest in the game itself. But Nick is still finding ways to entertain daily, which is a testament to his creativity, positivity, perseverance, and talent. Love it!

So, how does Nick’s YouTube channel relate to personal injury law in Ontario Canada? Good question!

Recently, Nick had to go in for Jury Duty Selection at a downtown Courthouse. He was dismissed. You can check out Nick’s great take on Jury Duty at the 4:57 mark of his YouTube Video. 

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If you drive a car in Ontario, every year or so, your car insurance needs to get renewed. Come renewal time, your premiums may go up, they may go down, or just stay the same.

Ontario drivers need to purchase insurance in order to drive. This is a requirement under the Compulsory Automobile Insurance Act R.S.O., 1990 c. C. 25: which states:

Compulsory automobile insurance

2. (1) Subject to the regulations, no owner or lessee of a motor vehicle shall,

(a) operate the motor vehicle; or

(b) cause or permit the motor vehicle to be operated,

on a highway unless the motor vehicle is insured under a contract of automobile insurance.

In plain English, if you drive a vehicle; that vehicle needs to be insured. That means that you, or somebody else needs to pay money to an insurer to have that vehicle insured.

You see a lot of advertising from insurance companies on TV, the internet, at hockey games, even on billboards on our roads. There’s that Knight Mascot from Belair Direct. The “under five minutes” to start your claim schtick from Intact. State Farm has ads which feature different celebrities. They’re all fighting for you business as a consumer of insurance (car, home or otherwise).

But as consumers, insurance is one of the few products which in general, consumers don’t really understand. This is not like buying a pair of shoes or a loaf of bread. Have you ever read the fine print contained in those lengthy policies of insurance? Probably not. It’s all in legalese. Even the personal injury lawyers, insurers and judges don’t get it right sometimes!

Even more remarkable is that the majority of insurance consumers purchase these products without knowing what benefits come with the product. All people care about is the bottom line. How much will their insurance cost? They don’t bother asking the question; what benefits am I entitled to receive from this insurance product in the event of a car collision? How will my insurance protect me in the event of a serious car accident?

None of these questions are asked, or even thought of until it’s too late.

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