LAWYER HELPLINE: ☎ 855 804 7142

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 an Ontario car accident lawyer without further obligation, just use the helpline or send the contact form or email our offices and an Ontario 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.

 

Ontario Car Accident Lawyer - Negligence

 

Negligence is a legal term that means a person has done something in the act of “commission” or not done something in an act of “omission” that ultimately causes harm or death to another person. The act the person does or fails to do should be one that a reasonable person would have done differently, in a way that would not have resulted in the second person’s harm.

Just because you or a loved one were harmed in an accident, injury or medical procedure, it doesn’t mean that a lawsuit is in order against the offending person. Your Ontario car accident lawyer must show the presence of negligence to the court in order to file a claim for compensation of injuries.

Your Ontario car accident lawyer must first show something called duty of care. This means that he or she must show that the person had some responsibility over the care of the person. Even other motorists are given the responsibility to assure they don’t hurt anyone in the act of driving a motor vehicle. In the same way, the highway system is responsible to keep the roads as safe as possible and the railroad companies must maintain their properties so that no accidents happen. This is known as duty of care.

After the Ontario car accident lawyer proves that the duty of care existed in the first place, he or she must show that the individual who was negligent actually breached their duty of care and, in doing so, caused the victim or victims to be harmed in some way. The acceptable standards of care must have fallen below that which is reasonable in order to show negligence. On the other hand, the negligent motorist doesn’t have to break the law to the point of getting a ticket for their offense in order to still be considered negligent in the accident.

As a final point, the Ontario car accident lawyer must prove that the victim suffered some loss as a result of the injury or accident. Losses include cost of medical care, wage losses and non-specific losses like pain or suffering. The judge must rule that the losses are relatively connected to the victim in today’s time or a fixed time in the future. Those losses that are too remote will be denied.

If negligence is shown and losses are present, the Ontario car accident lawyer must calculate the amount of compensation owed to you. There are things called “special damages” that are fairly easy to calculate as they are easily defined numbered items. “General damages” are harder to figure out and often have a vague amount of money attached to them. The value of these can be settled between the two lawyers or in court.

A good compensation claim contains losses for pain and suffering if applicable, loss of potential job opportunities, loss of wages from the time of the accident until the case is settled, loss of future wages, losses due to being unable to partake in hobbies, leisure time or the activities of daily living, loss of enjoyment of the person’s life, disability expenses, including equipment needed because of the disability, home health care and continuing nursing care. The money put into repairing or replacing a car is included in a claim as well as the cost of hiring a rental car. Interest on anything can be included in a claim.

Laws regarding negligence all have statutes of limitations. The statute of limitations is the time the Plaintiff’s lawyer has to file the claim against the defendant. Unfortunately, any claim filed after the statute of limitations has run out will be invalid. The statute of limitations can start timing out at the moment of injury or at the time the negligence was discovered. For example, cases of asbestos exposure that cause fatal cases of mesothelioma are often not discovered for 30 to 40 years.

LAWYER HELPLINE: ☎ 855 804 7142