Like most insurance policies, motor vehicle accident (MVA) insurance is something you “have”, but tend not to investigate until you need it. Policies vary in coverage and amounts paid should an accident occur. Although no policy is complete, anyone injured in a MVA is entitled to certain benefits no matter who was at fault.

Under the Canadian No-fault law, car accident victims are allowed to sue the other party for damages in addition to the insurance settlement. Insurance companies pay benefits out according to the Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule (SABS), but these payments may not be enough to remedy expenses in a fault MVA. In the rare case that neither party has insurance, the Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Fund takes care of the injured party’s expenses.

Expenses covered are:

• Loss of Income. If injuries sustained from the accident prevented you from working at your job, the income lost during the recovery period may be reimbursed. Under the Insurance Act, parties are eligible for up to 80% of their net income from accident to trial and up to 100% gross income loss after trial.
• Medical Expenses. Any medical costs incurred. This includes rehabilitation.
• Attendant Care Expenses. After being injured and then released from the hospital, you may require the help of a nurse or other professional. MVA payments cover this.
• Additional Expenses. Expenses relating to the treatment of injuries sustained during an MVA such as travel costs, any prescribed apparatus, and other costs incurred because of the injuries.

Consulting with your lawyer after an accident is the best way to figure out what you are entitled too. The means of tabulating damages can be complicated and an experienced Canadian lawyer will have a good idea of what settlement you deserve. They will guide you on what to do if your insurance company wants a statement or the other party’s insurance company wants to talk with you among other issues.

It is best to be proactive about your MVA insurance policy. Before an accident occurs, find a lawyer to discuss what is and is not covered and what coverage would be best for you. A little preparation goes a long way and a simple consultation can help ease the mind over one’s safety if an accident ever does occur.

For more information on Canadian Lawyers, Toronto Lawyers, Vancouver Lawyers and previous, real examples of cases related to your car accident situation you might be facing , visit www.lawyerahead.ca

Many personal injury cases are a victim’s first experience meeting a lawyer. The situations surrounding the injury may impair a person’s ability to focus or remember exactly what happened. Preparing ahead of time for a meeting with a canadian personal injury lawyer enhances the chances they will take your case and make the injured ‘more confident’ during her actual meeting.

Police reports. Depending on the severity and circumstances surrounding the injury, there may be a police report regarding the case. This tends to occur when the injured party was involved in a car accident. In situations like these, any reports and documentation need to be brought to the meeting with your Canadian lawyer.

Personal injury lawyer Rose Keith

Medical bills and documentation. Any records or costs associated with the treatment of injuries relating to the case are important indicators for lawyers. If they decide to represent you, these documents will help them gauge how much in damages you are eligible to receive. Any notes or statements from the physician regarding recovery times should be mentioned as well. X-rays, CAT scan results and other such medical evidence will help the attorney establish what damage was incurred. Documentation of any preexisting conditions should be included as well. Being completely honest and painting an accurate picture is vital at this stage and can help avoid heartache in the courtroom later on.

Questions. Practice answering questions lawyers will more than likely ask and think of some questions to ask them. For example, if you were injured in a car accident, remembering details like the speed you were traveling, did you have your safety belt on, what do you think caused the accident, were you or the other driver drunk, and other factors that could play into the case as it unfolds.

Once you feel you can thoroughly answer any conceivable questions they might throw at you, come up with some of your own. How do you get paid (retainer, percentage, etc.) and what kind of additional costs might there be, what sort of experience do you have with these types of cases, in your experience how much can I expect as a settlement/judgment, will you be handling my case personally, and what other information do you need from me, are all good questions.

It is a good idea to consult with more than one attorney regarding the merits of your case even if the first is more than willing to represent you. Getting the best deal you can with the best lawyer you can get is the goal. Some lawyers are more costly and may be worth the added expense.

Consultations can seem a lot like an interview. In one sense, lawyers are interviewing you to see if your case is worthy of representation and in another sense you are interviewing the lawyer to see whether or not you would like them representing you. Coming prepared to these consultations can help smooth out this process and allow you to focus on this key question.

Find a Lawyer through lawyerahead.ca.  The comprehensive online directory of lawyers and an easy to locate your lawyer overall.

We’re all familiar with medical malpractice in the common sense where an impetuous surgeon misplaces a scalpel or two inside a patient’s chest cavity… but what about pets? As it turns out, more and more cases are surfacing involving the death of a pet due to veterinary malpractice.

Historically, the value of an animal was limited to its economic value. The intent leaned more towards farmers who, if disenfranchised by the loss of livestock, would be awarded the market value of that animal. This of course forgoes any consideration for the connection between an owner and their furry friend, which is evident when what the owner spends to save their animal exceeds the pet’s “market value”. For instance, a pet owner who funds a $50,000 surgery to have a cancerous tumor removed from their cat when the cat’s market value is fourteen dollars.

Some believe that Canada is right for not putting a price tag on the emotional distress caused by losing an animal to veterinary malpractice. The high price of a vet visit would only increase after malpractice insurance rates grow due to larger settlement amounts. This seems justified by what has happened with healthcare in the United States. But is it right for the whole to save a few dollars when a few have legitimate claims to bigger settlements?

California doesn’t think so. The USA Today mentions the saga of a dog owner’s lawyer who fought for and received $30,000 for the dog’s “unique value” in addition to the costs associated with the surgery. They go on to mention a similar case out of Kentucky where the court awarded a pet owner $15,000 for their dead German shepherd.

The common law opinion that animals are merely property is perceived more and more as defunct. Tort suits in the US where pet owners receive monies beyond the scope of their animal’s economic value are becoming more prevalent and it may only be a matter of time before Canada follows suit.

To find a lawyer for your legal matters, visit www.lawyerahead.ca.

Lawyerahead.ca has the most comprehensive online lawyer information on a Canadian Lawyer including medical malpractice lawyers.

Visit site, call few canadian lawyers or post case and interested lawyers will contact you.

We have covered the 1st 2 stages of a personal injury case: 

1. Meeting Your Lawyer
2. Starting a Lawsuit

Resolving before going through trial

The 3rd stage of a Personal injury case is resolving the case before trial.  A Motion to dismiss can be filed for various reasons:  lack of subject matter jurisdiction, lack of personal jurisdiction, imporper venue, insufficiency of process or insufficient service of process, failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.  A Motion to Dismiss can be filled at any stage of the process if the defendant believes that the compaint is legally deficient in some way.

If the facts are very clear, there is no need for a trial and a Summary Judgement Motion can be filed.  The party’s lawyers who believe that the facts will work out a ruling in his or her favor will ask the court to consider these facts and apply the law to them.

A Motion for Default Judgement can occur if the dendant fails to answer the compaint in time set by the court and the court proceeds to putting defendant in default.  This will be the worst outcome for a defendant because if he or she doesn’t have an appropriate excuse, he or she will not be permitted to contest and will pay the sum set during the trial.

As we have mentioned in our previous blog posts, there are various types of personal injuries and this field has thousands of examples - still it is important to remember that most personal injury cases are usually settled outside the court or without trail.

We will begin examining the stages of a Personal Injury case in 7 stages.  Here is the 1st stage.

Stage 1:  Meeting with the Lawyer

Stage 1 - meeting with your lawyer

Every Personal Injury case starts by first meeting with the lawyer.  It is important to remember that only a professional lawyer can define the types of damages and compensation amounts.   Any other individual without experience nor knowledge in this field will not be able to help you nor do they possess the experience to classify the type of personal injury you might be facing. 

Usually in the meeting with the lawyer, the injured person begins by telling the lawyer all possible details of the accident.  The bigger the case is, the number questions tend to be higher and one can expect the meeting with the lawyer to go on for a longer period of time.  We have had many personal injury clients and as reported by them, they have had to meet with the lawyer for just 30 mins in some cases to over couple hours in other cases.  This is because, in the event the case goes to the court room, even the smallest detail can help you in your personal injury case. 

After the lawyer, or sometimes a team of lawyers , have gathered all the necessary details of the case, they will define to you the types of damages and compensation you can expect.  At this stage your lawyer will discuss with you the entire strategy for your upcoming case.

Stay tuned for the next stage  Stage 2 - Starting a Lawsuit!  Visit www.lawyerahead.ca to get help with your personal injury case.

Personal injuries are probably one of the most common things that happen in our everyday life. If you are involved in an accident or just sustain a personal injury, or someone’s negligence or intentional actions result as harm to you, you are always able to fill a lawsuit and receive some compensation. On the other side if you are the one who is fully or particularly responsible for someone else’s injury, it will be good to be aware of the possible consequences. So basically general knowledge about personal injuries is useful for everyone. This article will be about types of personal injuries and the compensations that you can charge or you’ll be charged with.

Personal Injury Damage Points

The compensatory damages you may experience from a tort (don’t worry, tort is a legal term referring to a civil wrong that results in damages to another person, persons’ property or rights) can be general or special. General damages allow you to seek recovery for the non-monetary aspects of you damage and special damages for monetary. The non-monetary aspects can include pain and suffering, impaired ability to live as you did before your accident, loss of a loved one and loss of reputation. It is very difficult to calculate the monetary value of these losses. If the damages include calculations of your loss of ability to enjoy life, it is called hedonic damages. Just like the other non-monetary damages it is hard to calculate the value of compensation, because the initial value of life is not stated in any of the laws.

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The best one who can help you with defining the type of your damage and the corresponding charges is a personal injury lawyer. In most of the cases, it doesn’t matter if the damage was emotional of physical or you suffered financial difficulties, there are always some minor things that are obvious to any experienced lawyer. See our previous article on things you should know about before hiring a personal injury lawyer for more details on lawyers and Law related to the subject of personal injury.

Many parents believed that mercury-laced vaccines caused their child’s autism, but a special U.S. court ruled otherwise. The court found that there was no direct link between receiving the vaccination and autism.

With copious amounts of scientific research done on the subject, the court had a lot to go on. Inevitably, the court concluded that, “It was abundantly clear that petitioners’ theories of causation were speculative and unpersuasive.” Adding that, “the weight of scientific research and authority” was “simply more persuasive on nearly every point in contention.” And the evidence “is weak, contradictory and unpersuasive,” and “sadly, the petitioners in this litigation have been the victims of bad science conducted to support litigation rather than to advance medical and scientific understanding” of autism.

This ruling brings grim tidings to more than 5,500 families who have filed personal injury claims through the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. The attorneys for the families must show that thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative found in vaccines, more than likely caused their child to become autistic.

The controversy over vaccines has a lot of celebrity proponents. Jenny McCarthy, a television star and Playboy playmate, is one of them. McCarthy’s son is afflicted with autism and, in an attempt to spread awareness; she has done many interviews, most recently with CNN, regarding the connection between vaccines and autism.

Where it gets bothersome is with organizations like Kids Need Options With Vaccines (KNOW). They have a page on their website listing three ‘myths’ about vaccinations including “Vaccines are effective” as one of the myths. According to them, there is no proof vaccines help lower disease rates and that the only true way to do this is through improved hygiene and diet.

In Quebec City, a 15-year-old contracted meningitis in part because he refused the meningitis vaccine. Under Quebec law, people 14 and old have the right to refuse a vaccine without parental consent.

The decision by the court is refreshing. It is nice to know science can still triumph and mob rule is not always status quo. Autism is a challenging disease and it is almost a shame the parents were wrong in the sense that knowing the cause would allow us to change the way we inoculate our young and curtail autism. Nevertheless, they were wrong and the court’s decision puts aside claims by lawyers and their clients that may have hindered finding the true cause of autism and ending it.