British Colombia Car Accident Lawyer - Personal Injury Compensation Claims

LAWYER HELPLINE: ☎ 855 804 7142


Personal Injury Lawyers

There are over 500,000 motor vehicle collisions in Canada every year which cause almost 250,000 people to be injured, over 20,000 of which are critical injuries of which about 3,000 are fatalities. There are about 8 deaths every day on Canadian roads and there is a serious injury every 2 minutes resulting in over 100,000 claims for compensation ever year in Canada. If you would like to talk to a British Colombia car accident lawyer without further obligation then just use the helpline or send the contact form or email our offices and a British Colombia car accident lawyer who deals exclusively in personal injury accident claims will speak to you with free advice and information on how best to preserve your legal rights to compensation for your injuries.

 

British Colombia Car Accident Lawyer - Negligence

 

Negligence is a special legal term often used in situations where an accident or injury has occurred and lawyers want to know if the accident was only an accident or if someone else, such as a person, government agency or corporation was at fault and caused the accident or injury. In order to file a compensation legal claim against the person who was at fault, the condition of negligence must be met.

In order to show that negligence took place in an accident or injury, the lawyer needs to demonstrate that the person who caused the accident committed an act that no other reasonable person would have done, given the same set of circumstances. This eliminates those situations where the offending person did something that normal people would do but an accident happened anyway.

Secondly, the British Colombia car accident lawyer must look at the issue of “duty of care”. Duty of care is a term that means the person who caused the accident had the personal responsibility to keep the victim safe. This applies to railroad companies, for example, that owe a duty of care to their passengers to have them travel safely and without injury. Nursing home workers owe a duty of care to nursing home residents to perform those duties necessary for the health and wellbeing of their residents.

Thirdly, the British Colombia car accident lawyer must demonstrate that a breach of the duty of care occurred. Something about the behavior of the person causing the accident had to fall below acceptable standards of care. Acceptable standards of care exist in many industries and government agencies and some of these standards of care apply to an individual person.

Lastly, the British Colombia car accident lawyer must show that the injured party did, in fact, suffer some kind of personal loss attributable to the accident. Losses can be clear cut, such as losing wages because of an extended recovery period. Losses can be less clear, such as the losses experienced by the person because of an inability to perform a hobby or activity of daily living.

Once the various criteria for negligence have been met, the lawyer can begin to draw up a legal document that lists the losses in the form of a compensation claim. The British Colombia car accident lawyer must monetize the value of both “special damages” and “general damages”. The determination of special damages is not so difficult. Special damages have a known monetary value that can be calculated easily. Lost wages can be easily calculated, for example. General damages are harder to monetize but can be as important to the victim as special damages. General damages include things like alienation of affection and the losses one experiences as a result of not being able to perform common acts of daily living.

Claims may consist of the following: loss of wages from the time of the incident to the time of the legal settlement, loss of future wages, which must be estimated in some cases, loss of ability to advance in one’s career, the cost to repair a damaged car or to replace one, the cost of a rental car, medical costs, the value of pain and suffering, disability costs, which could include the cost of disability-related equipment or the cost of home health care services. More difficult is determining the monetary value of the loss of ability to do the normal activities of daily living or hobbies and the losses related to alienation of affection related to the accident or injury.

The lawyer must respect laws related to the statue of limitations regarding cases of negligence. The statute of limitations is the time allowed for the lawyer to file the compensation claim against the defendant. Claims attempted to be filed beyond this date are not able to be accepted.

LAWYER HELPLINE: ☎ 855 804 7142