Dime a Dozen for Attorneys – Do Your Research

There’s an old saying that attorneys are a, “dime a dozen”. With the advent of social media the tools to select the right attorney for the right job, and compare all at the same time, is at your fingertips.

That means the following concern should happen less in our digital age.

My attorney for 2 years has done nothing that I understand. I drive 80 miles one way for a meeting and we discuss options/strategies then I leave (after she charges 400.00) and she does not follow thru. Continue reading “Dime a Dozen for Attorneys – Do Your Research”

Specific Section B benefits, Insurance Benefits

In Canada, depending on the province where you reside, there are certain benefits that your insurer has to pay to you after you’ve been in a car accident. Often referred to as the ‘Section B’ insurer, insurance has to pay certain benefits. Generally speaking, there are both income loss and medical expense benefits that are potentially payable. An often overlooked entitlement under the Section B benefits in Alberta is the right to claim $135 a week if you are not employed and are unable to perform your household duties. This is often referred to as the ‘homemaker’s benefit’. The relevant section of the policy reads as follows :

Continue reading “Specific Section B benefits, Insurance Benefits”

Pictures of Your Slip & Fall

What’s perhaps the greatest asset when seeking adequate compensation for a slip or fall injury? Quite simply it’s pictures. A picture in this case would be worth a 1000 words. Pictures from multiple angles, with measurement tools or comparison objects, close ups, even a landscape shot, there’s no shortage of how many pictures you can take of a scene.

Help yourself build a case by ensuring your ‘evidence’ is substantial. Continue reading “Pictures of Your Slip & Fall”

Limiting Your Treatments after Injury

Is it true that you are entitled to certain insurance benefits from your own insurer, regardless of who was at fault? It’s true, in Canada these benefits are often called ‘Section B benefits’. However, insurers like to erroneously inform injured clients that they will only ‘authorize’ 21 treatments (of various kinds). This is not true. Continue reading “Limiting Your Treatments after Injury”

How should someone go about selecting the right lawyer?

How should someone go about selecting the right lawyer?

Often the best way to pick a lawyer is by speaking with family and friends about their experience with a particular lawyer. If you are trying to choose a lawyer where you don’t have a friend or family member’s referral to the lawyer, the most important thing in my opinion is that you need to feel ‘comfortable’ with the lawyer you selected.

For cases that operate on contingency, you do have an opportunity to try visiting or speaking to a few different lawyers to determine who you trust or click with more.

Some want their lawyer to be located downtown in a high-rise office tower and be dressed in a three-piece suit. If that’s what makes you feel comfortable and gives you a sense trust in your lawyer, then that’s where you should look for your lawyer. Alternatively, other people can be somewhat intimidated by the ‘big downtown law firm’ scenario. Those people need to find a smaller law firm where the lawyers are ‘approachable’ and give you a good first impression.

You want someone who is experienced in the field where you need help, will listen to you and work hard for you. Ultimately you should hire the lawyer who provides a sense of comfort and trust.

* Input from Conway Injury Law.

Unseen Doesn’t Mean Un-hurt

Soft tissue damage is usually unseen. That means to people around you your injuries seem like phantom boo-boos, but in reality you’re in real pain. Family, friends, and other loved ones need to show empathy to those with soft tissue damage as these injuries do not come with broken bones or prolonged bruising.

You may slowly find yourself doing less and less around the house because your injuries are getting worse and worse. To those around you it may seem as if you’re physically fine on the outside and are just getting lazy! Remember, just because it can’ tbe seen doesn’t mean you aren’t hurt!

Secured Financing Intro

The idea of modernizing finance law has spread around the world. Secured financing is a way to stimulate economic growth and modernize an economy. In theory, capital is not used to develop the community because of the lack of legal infrastructure by which banks can lend capital and can hold an expectation to get it back. Many developing countries adopt systems patterned on the Canadian system.

In Canadian law, the core of the system is the security interest. What is a security interest? A secured interest is Propriety interest in the debtors property. This allows assertion of the nemo dat principle. The secured creditor defeats anyone who thereafter who takes an interest in the property.

Continue reading “Secured Financing Intro”

Introduction to the Tort of Negligence

Here are some introductory points on the tort of negligence.

The Elements of a Negligence Action –

Remember, the plaintiff usually has the burden of proving the first five, while the defendant has the burden of proving the sixth.

1. Duty of Care (limiting step) – there are policy considerations that can lead to the finding and non finding of a duty of care; this duty of care exists when it is reasonably foreseeable that your actions will have an effect on another person.

2. Standard of Care and its Breach – in most (but not all) negligence actions, the standard of care is the reasonable person standard .

3. Causation – has the breach of the duty of care caused an injury to the plaintiff? But for the breach of the duty of care, would the injury have occurred?

4. Remoteness of Damages (limiting step) – also called legal causation; if the damages are found to be too remote from the breach of the standard of care, then the plaintiff will not win the case.

5. Actual Loss – without loss, the plaintiff will not be successful (as opposed to intentional torts)

6. Defences – voluntary assumption of risk, illegality