Personal Injuries

On this page you will find information about:

Our lawyers focus on representing people who have been injured in car accidents and other motor vehicle accidents.  We have many years of experience dealing with complex medical issues and catastrophic injuries with a particular focus on brain injury cases.

In our experience it is particularly important that people who have suffered personal injuries get legal advice. To that end we have included some practical information about finding and hiring a lawyer.

Brain Injuries

Brain injuries, or head injuries, can be the most difficult injuries for the medical and legal professions to deal with. They are complicated and difficult injuries, which require specialized and immediate attention to ensure future care and treatment. Brain injuries can occur in many kinds of accidents where there has been trauma to the brain. There need not be a physical blow to the skull to cause trauma to the brain, so often there is no outside evidence of the trauma. A violent jerking of the head can cause a brain injury. Brain injuries can occur in car accidents, slip and fall accidents, in sport activities or anytime the head is jerked violently.

The outward evidence of a brain injury may be such symptoms as speech impairment, headaches, paralysis, seizures, or cognitive disorders such as difficulty remembering things, difficulty concentrating, a decrease in I.Q., mood swings, anxiety, depression among other things. Often these symptoms are not attributed to a head injury or the accident, even by the treating doctors. It is important to retain a lawyer experienced in head injury cases to make sure that the injured person gets the appropriate medical testing and treatment to either confirm or rule out a head injury after an accident.

Even when there is a firm diagnosis of brain injury the injured person often has difficulty with family members and work colleagues because of a lack of understanding of the injury, both on the part of the injured person and those who are in contact with the injured person. Often the first objective evidence of head injury is a sudden decrease in job performance, or school test scores. Often friends notice changes in behaviour. The proper medical testing can provide good evidence of a head injury.

Head injured people have been described as the ‘walking wounded’ because their injury is not readily apparent. However, a head injury can be more devastating to the victim than almost any other type of injury.

At Acheson Whitley Sweeney we have extensive experience in representing people with head injuries. We will assist in putting together a team of professionals, such as neurologists, neuropsychologists, rehabilitation workers, accountants and many other specialists, to assist the victims and their families. Our legal team will gather the evidence and present the case in order to maximize the compensation for the head injured victim.

Motor Vehicle Accidents

If you’re injured in a motor vehicle accident in British Columbia you should do the following:

  1. Get the name, address, driver’s licence number and licence plate number from the other driver;
  2. Get the names and addresses of anyone who witnessed the accident;
  3. Call the police to report the accident. If it is a serious accident they will attend at the scene.
  4. If you have been injured, go to the Emergency department of the nearest hospital.
  5. Report your claim to ICBC Dial-A-Claim by calling 1-800-910-4222. Make arrangements to have your vehicle examined by an ICBC estimator and the damage assessed.
  6. Contact a lawyer before you make a personal injury claim with ICBC. People sometimes make statements to ICBC that can hurt their case later. It is important to talk to a lawyer first so that you fully understand your rights and obligations in making an insurance claim. ICBC is a corporation and they make profits by denying claims. The ICBC adjuster’s job is to pay you as little as possible. See “ICBC Claims” and our helpful ICBC information sheets.

Finding a Lawyer

  1. Take advantage of the free first interview that most lawyers offer.
  2.  The following questions will help you determine whether the lawyer you are interviewing is right for you:
  • Has this lawyer’s name been referred to you by past clients or current caregivers in a positive way?
  • Does this lawyer spend at least 80% of his or her time practicing in the area of Personal Injury?
  • Does this lawyer act only for injured people, and never for insurance companies or the at fault driver?
  • Does this lawyer do his or her own trials, and actually take cases to jury trials?
  • When you met this lawyer, did you feel comfortable and that you could accept this person’s advice? Will this be a good working relationship for you?
  • Is this lawyer a successful mediator, and will mediation be used to attempt to settle your claim?
  • Will this lawyer take your case on a contingency basis (which means the lawyer does not get paid unless they win your case.)?

Hiring a Lawyer

If you have been injured by someone you should consult with a lawyer. A good lawyer will review your case and give you an unbiased opinion on whether you need a lawyer or not. In most cases where you have been injured, so that you lose time from work, or suffer from the injury for more than a few days, you should hire a lawyer. In most cases, you have to deal with an insurance company to get compensation for your injury. You need a lawyer to represent your interests to the insurance company for the following reasons:

  1. The insurance adjuster is not your friend. Insurance companies make profit by collecting as much in premiums as possible and paying out as little as possible in benefits. The insurance adjuster’s job is to pay you the least amount of money possible.
  2. The insurance adjuster will take a statement from you that can be used against you in court.
  3. The insurance adjuster will often obtain your pre-accident private medical history, whether or not the nature of the case requires disclosure. This is an invasion of your privacy.
  4. The insurance adjuster may appoint a medical specialist of his or her choice to assess you. This choice of specialist may not be in your best interests. With a lawyer, a fairer choice will me made.
  5. Often, the first insurance adjuster that you meet will be a front line “nice” guy who is supposed to keep you from seeing a lawyer. Later, after the insurance company has organized the medical evidence to keep the size of your claim down, a different adjuster may take over and play hardball. If you wait until then to see a lawyer, evidence hurtful to your claim may have already been gathered against you.
  6. The insurance adjuster may not offer you all of the rehabilitation care which you are entitled to. Getting better is your priority, a lawyer will help this happen.
  7. If you don’t accept the settlement that the insurance adjuster offers you, the adjuster will often threaten you with a “Jury Trial”. In British Columbia, the insurance companies select jury trials in most personal injury cases because they believe that juries will award less than judges.
  8. Most clients who come to lawyers do so because the insurance company is refusing to pay for the treatment that the client’s doctors recommended, or because an unfair settlement offer is made. Most clients have more money in their pocket after payment of the lawyer’s fees than they would have had if they had settled on their own.
  9. A lawyer’s contingency fee is the same whether you retain the lawyer early or late. Why not have the benefit of a lawyer right from the beginning?
  10. Individual law firms keep their own statistics. Ask the lawyer you are considering hiring about his or her performance.

 

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