Source: http://bc-injury-law.com/blog/tag/icbc-settlement
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 19:07:15+00:00

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Reasons for judgment were released today by the BC Supreme Court dealing with 2 issues of interest to me, Costs consequences under Rule 66 and Rule 37B.
In today’s case (Schnare v. Roberts) the Plaintiff was injured in a motor vehicle collision. The Plaintiff sued for damages under Rule 66. The Plaintiff made a formal offer of settlement and ICBC did not accept it. The Plaintiff proceeded to trial and the verdict more than doubled the Plaintiff’s settlement offer. (click here to read my previous post regarding the trial judgment).
(b) if the time spent on the hearing of the trial is more than one day, $6 600.
(29.1) In exercising its discretion under subrule (29), the court may consider a settlement offer delivered in accordance with Rule 37 or 37A whether or not other special circumstances exist.
Rules 37 and 37A have been repealed and replaced with Rule 37B.
 In my view, Ms. Schnare’s case was not the type of case contemplated by Rule 66. By October 2008, the parties themselves realized that two days would not be sufficient for trial. Even a more generous estimate of three days turned out to be insufficient to deal with the evidence on the relevant issues in the case and with submissions (including submissions on the admissibility of documentary evidence). Although court adjourned somewhat early in the afternoon on January 28, 2009, it sat late on January 29, 2009, to ensure that a witness’ evidence could be completed. I did not consider counsel were inefficient in their use of time. I am satisfied that the length of the trial itself constitutes “special circumstances” in this case. See Kailey v. Kellner, 2008 BCSC 224, 56 C.P.C. (6th) 40, where, in comparable circumstances, Mr. Justice Parrett also found the length the trial constituted “special circumstances” justifying a departure from the fixed costs under Rule 66(29), and awarded costs on Scale B.
 In my opinion, the appropriate order respecting costs (before considering matters under Rule 37B) was and is that the plaintiff should recover her costs on Scale B of Appendix B.
19] Should the plaintiff’s January 26, 2009 offer have been accepted, and the costs of the trial avoided? Analysis of this question is not to be based on hindsight once the final result is known, as noted in Bailey v. Jang, 2008 BCSC 1372, 63 C.P.C. (6th) 291, at para. 24. Nevertheless, in my view, the defendants should have given that offer much more serious consideration when looking at the risks of going to trial.
 The defendants’ defence to Ms. Schnare’s claims for substantial damages rested primarily on the shoulders of their expert, Dr. McPherson, the only defence witness. However, there were serious risks in that strategy. Dr. McPherson was very closely tied to ICBC, and had been for over a decade. This was not a secret, and had been the subject of media reports, which were used to cross-examine Dr. McPherson. As counsel for the defendants must have appreciated, these ties made an issue of Dr. McPherson’s impartiality and credibility, and impaired his value as a expert. Dr. McPherson’s evidence, unlike that of Dr. Van Rijn and Mr. McLean, did nothing to explain Ms. Schnare’s continuing symptoms and physical difficulties, and provided little assistance to the court. His rejection of the possibility that there could be movement of Ms. Schnare’s sacroiliac joints led inevitably to his conclusion that her complaints could not be accident-related, and to speculate that Ms. Schnare possibly had a condition that Dr. McPherson conceded was extremely rare. As I noted in my reasons, Dr. McPherson was unhelpfully dismissive of opinions other than his own. In my view, the defendants’ reliance on Dr. McPherson’s opinions to defend against Ms. Schnare’s claims was unreasonable in face of the plaintiff’s eve-of-trial offer to settle. The offer represented a very substantial discount from the amounts Ms. Schnare sought at trial. A more reasonable assessment of the potential risk that Dr. McPherson’s opinions would be unpersuasive (as I found them) should have led the defendants to accept Ms. Schnare’s last offer, in which case the costs of the trial would have been avoided. This factor supports the plaintiff.
 The final damages awarded to Ms. Schnare were more than twice the amount of Ms. Schnare’s offer. This factor also supports the plaintiff.
 With respect to the relative financial circumstances of the parties, I consider this factor neutral.
 Taking into account the underlying legislative policy behind Rule 37B, that Ms. Schnare’s offer represented a very substantial discount off her damage claims presented at trial and if accepted would have avoided the costs of the trial, and that the amount awarded was significantly more than the amount of Ms. Schnare’s offer, in my view it is appropriate to award the plaintiff double costs for steps taken after January 26, 2009.
Reasons for judgement were released today by the BC Supreme Court, Vancouver Registry, giving more interpretation to Rule 37B in ICBC Injury Claims (click here to read my previous posts on this topic).
In today’s case (Smagh v. Bumbrah) the Plaintiff was injured in a 2004 motor vehicle crash. The defendant made an offer to settle the case for $20,000 plus costs and disbursements in 2006. This offer was rejected and the plaintiff proceeded to trial. After a 10 day jury trial in early 2009 damages of $2,200 were awarded.
(4) The court may consider an offer to settle when exercising the court’s discretion in relation to costs.
 Here the defendant seeks an award of double costs pursuant to Rule 37. I turn to the considerations in Rule 37B (5)(b) and (6).
(a) Whether the offer to settle was one that ought reasonably to have been accepted, either on the date that the offer to settle was delivered or on any later date.
 The plaintiff argues that, at worst, costs should only be awarded to the defendant commencing November 6, 2008. That is when the defendant forwarded the report of Dr. Matushak, an orthopaedic surgeon who conducted an independent medical examination and whose report was not favourable to the plaintiff. Before that time the plaintiff had the reports of her family doctor and two specialists. All three of these physicians were supportive of her claim that her symptoms were related to the accident.
 The difficulty with this submission is that these three reports were based on an acceptance of what the plaintiff told them. Simply put, the jury did not believe what these physicians believed.
 I conclude that the offer ought reasonably to have been accepted one week after it was made.
 This factor favours an award of costs to the defendant. The jury awarded an amount substantially less than the defendant’s offer.
As well, an assessment of non-pecuniary damages, as every trial judge knows, is a difficult and somewhat subjective task, as hard as one tries to be consistent with other judgments. A jury verdict can, of course, be even more disparate when compared to assessments by judges.
 I agree with counsel for the plaintiff that the court should be cautious in placing too much weight on this factor.
The defendants, represented by ICBC, had substantially greater resources to finance a trial than the individual plaintiff.
 Second, [the plaintiff] places her financial position against that of ICBC, as opposed to that of the defendants.
 While I accept that it is likely that most drivers in British Columbia are insured by ICBC, the wording of subrule 37B does not invite consideration of a defendant’s insurance coverage. There may be good policy reasons for this. Insurance coverage limits with ICBC are not universal, and will vary from insured to insured. Certain activities may result in a breach of an individual’s insurance coverage, or the defence of an action under a reservation of rights by ICBC. A plaintiff will not and likely should not be privy to such matters of insurance coverage between a defendant and ICBC.
 The contest in this case was between the plaintiff and the defendants, and the insurance benefits available to the defendants do not, in my view, fall within the rubric of their financial circumstances, any more than any collateral benefit entitlement that a plaintiff may have would affect that person’s financial circumstances for the purpose of determining their loss.
 In Abma v. Paul, 2009 BCSC 60,  B.C.J. No. 87, Madam Justice Gropper agreed with the reasoning in Bailey. She distinguished the different circumstances in Radke, where the defendant accepted the plaintiff’s offer after 11 days of trial.
 The decision in Bailey was also followed in Kanda v. Jackson (19 December 2008), Vancouver M030259 (S.C.)).
[T]here will always be a substantial difference between the relative financial circumstances of the usual personal injury plaintiff and the defendant’s motor vehicle insurer. That difference, in and of itself, is not enough for the Court to exercise its discretion to deprive the defendant of costs. If that was the intent of the new rule, it would have been more clearly articulated.
 This third factor is not helpful in this case.
 While the relative financial positions may not be determinative, I am prepared to consider the financial circumstances of the plaintiff. They are poor. She invested in a laundry business which has now failed. The lender holds a claim over her home. As well, she is responsible for some or all of a $62,000 personal guarantee given in connection with the business.
 The plaintiff has begun working at a small firm on an as-needed basis for $11 per hour. She is unable to pay her bills. She owes her law firm some $40,000 for disbursements. These circumstances militate against an award of double costs.
 I conclude that the plaintiff is entitled to costs up to November 2, 2006. The defendants are entitled to costs, but not double costs, from November 2, 2006, to date.
 There has been mixed success on this application for costs. No costs are awarded in connection with this application.
Reasons for judgment were released today further interpreting the relatively new BC Rule 37(B) (the rule dealing with formal settlement offers and costs consequences of these in BC Supreme Court Actions).
The facts of this case are a little difficult to extract from the judgement but it appears that the Plaintiff sued for damages as a result of 2 motor vehicle collisions and separate Formal settlement offers were made by the Defendants in each action. Both actions went to trial by jury and damages were awarded.
It appears that the global Jury award exceeded the combined settlement offers but when broken down between the 2 accidents it appears that the settlement offer for the second collision exceeded the damages the Jury awarded for that collision.
The Defendants asked the court to award them costs for beating the Second Accident Rule 37 offer. (I should point out that the settlement offers where made when Rule 37 was still in place but verdict was given after it was repealed by Rule 37B).
 Rule changes have overtaken this case. Rule 37B retroactively reinstates judicial discretion in the matter of settlement offers and cost awards.
 As set out in Bailey v. Jang, 2008 BCSC 1372, Rule 37B came into force on July 1, 2008. The Rule states that it applies to offers to settle made both before and after July 1, 2008, where no order as to costs has been made. As conceded by the defendants on this application, Rule 37B returns judicial discretion as a major factor in determining an appropriate award of costs. Thus, the new rule makes far less applicable most of the Court of Appeal decisions relied upon by the defence. That is, those which stated Rule 37 is a complete code in relation to which no judicial discretion is applicable.
 Here, while I do not find, as urged to do by the plaintiff, that the offer is ambiguous or at least significantly ambiguous, it is clear that to accept the second offer in this case would not have simplified the trial at all. It is reasonable to assume that, particularly with a jury to have settled the second action would tend to leave the jury with more complicated instructions.
 The two offers combined were significantly less than half the award of the jury. Thus, this factor favours not awarding costs to the defendants.
 This was a matter of a bus company versus the modest financial circumstances of the plaintiff. If anything, it favours the plaintiff however, I give little weight to this.
 In all these circumstances – the over-riding principle here is whether, if the offer had been accepted would there have been a significant or any saving in litigation cost to either party or the Court. Here, it would be difficult to see any saving. It was obvious during this trial that the defence intended to call the bus driver and perhaps other witnesses to the second accident to challenge the plaintiff’s credibility generally. There was little or no evidence by the plaintiff that painted the second accident as other than minimal physically. The psychological impact was far greater because the second accident occurred just hours following a much more traumatic accident.
 Thus, there would have been no savings in time at the trial. In these circumstances the defendants are not entitled to any costs of these two actions and the plaintiff will have her costs throughout.
 There is divided success on this application. However, the plaintiff was successful on the costs issue which took up almost the whole of the submissions. In these circumstances she should have her costs at the lowest scale on this application.
I will continue to post the BC Supreme Court’s interpretation and application of Rule 37B. The factors the courts consider in exercising discretion under this rule should be of particular interest to anyone taking an ICBC injury claim to trial in BC Supreme Court where a formal settlement offer has been delivered.
As you may know Rule 37-B is the new BC rule dealing with formal settlements and costs consequences in the BC Supreme Court. (to find my previous posts on this case search this cite for ’37B’).
This new rule will take some time to work itself out. There are already conflicting reasons for judgement addressing whether it is appropriate to look at whether the Defendant is insured when considering costs consequences.
Last week J. Hinkson refused to consider the insurance status of a defendant when deciding whether to award ‘double costs’ after trial.
Reasons for judgement were released today considering the fact that the defendants were ‘represented by ICBC’ when weighing the ‘financial circumstances’ of the parties.
In addition to being the first precedent that has looked at the insurance status of the defendant as a relevant consideration, this case is interesting because it is the first to trigger ‘double costs’ even though a matter settled before judgement.
In this case the Plaintiff alleged a Mild Traumatic Brain Injury after a BC car accident. She sued and made a formal offer to settle for $500,000 which expired at the start of trial. The case settled on the 11th day of trial when the defendant’s offered to settle for $1 Million ‘plus assessable costs and disbursements’ less advances paid. The Plaintiff’s accepted this offer.
The parties could not agree on the costs implications of the settlement were. The Plaintiff asked for double costs because the Plaintiff’s reasonable settlement offer (which complied with Rule 37B) was rejected and the Plaintiff had to incur significant expense in running 11 days of trial prior to achieving settlement.
I’ve previously blogged about the financial consequences of being in breach of ICBC insurance.
Today reasons for judgemenet were delivered showing some of these consequences in action.
In 2002 the Plaintiff was involved in a car accident. He was at fault for the accident. He was in breach of his insurance at the time (he was driving with a suspended licence). And he injured the occupants of one of the vehicles involved in the collision.
The injured parties advanced an ICBC claim and eventually ICBC settled paying out a total of $19,067.38.
ICBC then came after the ‘breached’ Plaintiff to have the money paid back. ICBC also exercises its statutory right and refused to re-issue a license to the Plaintiff.
Today’s judgement dealt with how much money was owed to ICBC. The court found that ICBC was entitled to $19,320.38 from the ‘breached’ driver.
This case is worth bringing to the attention of anyone who is thinking of driving in breach of their contract with ICBC. Doing so can result in significant financial consequences.
In a judgement released today a total of $81,694 was awarded in compensation as a result of a 2004 ‘chain rear end’ accident in BC.
The accident involved mutliple vehicles and the force of the crash was enough to write off the Plaintiff’s car. Fault was admitted by ICBC leaving only quantum of damages at issue.
As a result of crash the court found that the Plaintiff suffered from a fracture at T12 and a disc injury to T11 / T12 and perhaps T9 / T10 (basically fractures to the mid back) and that the Plaintiff ‘has gone on to develop a chronic pain syndrome with discomfort, sleep disturbance and depression.
This case is worth reading for the judge’s discussion of credibility. When people complain of ‘chronic pain’ in an ICBC claim their credibility is always at issue. The reason is obvious, pain cannot be measured objectively. People can only describe their pain and a judge or jury can believe this descrpiton or reject it. In this case the judge had problems with the Plaintiff’s credibility but accepted that her chronic pain syndrome was legitimate.
More interesting is the judge’s comments on the credibility of the expert witnesses that testified. In this case ICBC, on behalf of the Defendant, hired an orthopaedic surgeon to examine the Plaintiff. He testified, in essence, that the Plaintiff had no serious injuries or ongoing problems. The court rejected this doctor’s evidence finding that ‘it was obvious to me that he had not spent as much time, nor was he as objective in his assessment of the Plaintiff (as her own physicians were). (ICBC’s doctor) impressed upon me that he was more of an advocate for ICBC than an objective expert, and I therefoe attach little wieght to his evidence.
This case is also worth reviewing for the judge’s great summary of the law relating to future wage loss at paragraphs 34 and 35.
If you are advancing and ICBC injury claim in BC Supreme Court, whether or not you are represented by an ICBC Claims Lawyer, you need to know something about Formal Settlement Offers. These settlement offers bring potential consequences if they are not accepted and these need to be considered when deciding whether an ICBC settlement offer is fair.
Rule 37 of the BC Supreme Court Rules permits parties to a lawsuit to make a Formal Settlement Offer and if the claim goes to trial and the settlement offer is beaten there can be significant Costs consequences (where the losing side has to pay the winning side tarriff court costs and disbursements which can easily exceed $10,000).
(b) if the plaintiff’s claim is dismissed, the defendant is entitled to costs assessed to the date the offer was delivered and to double costs assessed from that date.
(23) If the plaintiff has made an offer to settle a claim for money, and it has not expired or been withdrawn or been accepted, and if the plaintiff obtains a judgment for the amount of money specified in the offer or a greater amount, the plaintiff is entitled to costs assessed to the date the offer was delivered and to double costs assessed from that date.
Now, after absorbing all of the above you need to know that RULE 37 and 37A are being repealed as of July 2, 2008 and being replaced with Rule 37(B)!
That does not mean that you just wasted your time learning the above. If a formal offer to settle an ICBC injury claim is made before July 2, 2008 it needs to comply with Rule 37 or Rule 37A to trigger ‘costs consequences’.
3. contain the following sentence “the [name of party making the offer] reserves the right to bring this offer to the attention of the court for consideration in relation to costs after the court has rendered judgement on all other issues in this proceeding”.
It seems that the purpose of Rule 37B) is to simplify the process of making formal settlement offers. The consequences of taking ICBC claims to court and beating (or not beating) a formal settlement offer seem to be less certain under this new rule. Rule 37B(4) sets out the consequences as follows: “The court may consider an offer to settle when exercising the court’s discretion in relation to costs”.
(b) award double costs of all or some of the steps taken in the proceeding after the date of the delivery of the offer to settle.
I for one welcome Rule 37B. One of the biggest criticisms made by plaintiff ICBC injury claims lawyers was that the old Rule 37 was unfair to plaintiffs as a person injured in a car accident was always in a worse financial position to face the consequences of losing at trial than ICBC. This lopsided reality created a lot of pressure on people advancing ICBC injury claims in BC Supreme Court to consider settlement when faced with a Rule 37 formal settlement offer.
It will be interesting to see if our BC courts, when considering “the relative financial circumstances of the parties” will consider ICBC a party to the lawsuit of an ICBC injury claim. Typically, ICBC is not named as a defendant to a ICBC Injury tort Claim, instead those at fault for the collision are named and often they simply happen to be insured by ICBC. So ICBC is not formally a ‘party’ to most ICBC injury tort claims.
If the court is willing to consider the fact that the Defendant is insured when weighing the ‘relative financial circumstances of the parties‘ then this Rule is a welcome change for anyone advancing an ICBC injury claim. If not, perhaps the court is willing to consider this under “any other factor the court considers appropriate“.
Do you have questions about an ICBC settlement offer or the Rules of Court governing settlement offers in BC Supreme Court? If so click here to arrange a free consultation with ICBC Injury Claims lawyer Erik Magraken.
After a 13 day trial in Vancouver, BC, reasons for judgement were released yesterday awarding a Plaintiff $45,000 plus special damages (out of pocket expenses for treatment of injuries) as a result of a 2001 BC car accident. This was a ‘headache claim’ and the primary issues were whether the Plaintiff’s headaches were caused by the BC car accident and if so, how much money the injury claim was worth.
At trial the BC personal injury lawyers on opposing sides were miles apart in their view of the value of the case in their submissions to the court. The Plaintiff’s lawyer alleged permanent impairment of her capacity to earn income and sought damages in excess of $900,000. The personal injury lawyers defending the claim responded that the Plaintiff only suffered from mild soft tissue injuries and that damages between $10,000 – $20,000 were appropriate.
It is quite common for lawyers on opposing sides of ICBC claims to take very different positions at trial and this case is a good example of how far apart 2 sides to an ICBC claim can be. In this case the Plaintiff presented a case of chronic headaches which interfered with tasks of daily living including work. The defence lawyers presented a case alleging mild soft tissue injury with headaches resolving a short time after the accident. At the end of the trial the court largely sided with the defence lawyer’s position.
The Plaintiff was 19 at the time of the accident. As she was driving the defendant turned left directly in front of her lane of travel. She had the right of way. She had time to step on the brake and the clutch of her vehicle, shift into neutral and brace herself for the impact. The accident was described as a t-bone collision by the Plaintiff although the court noted that the front left portion of the Plaintiff’s car struck the driver’s side door of the other vehicle in this BC car accident claim.
As is often the case in ICBC claims alleging an ‘impaired earning capacity‘ due to a BC motor vehicle accident, the court heard from a variety of doctors as ‘expert witnesses’.
The defence lawyer relied on the opinion of Dr. Jones, a neurologist, who testified that the Plaintiff’s headaches are ‘true migraines that have arisen spontaneously and are unrelated to any injury to her neck or cervical spine’.
The court found that there were problems with the Plaintiff’s evidence and that her present recall of symptoms in the months after the accident was ‘unreliable’. The ultimate finding was that all of the Plaintiff’s headaches sinced 2002 were ‘primarily migraine headaches that she would have developed (even without the accident)’.
The court awarded $45,000 for pain and suffering and the Plaintiff’s special damages up to March 16, 2002.
This case is a great example of the different positions opposing lawyers can take in court in an ICBC claim and results such as this one should be reviewed when in settlement negotiations with ICBC for a ‘headache’ claim as a result of a car accident.
Do you have questions about this case or an ICBC headache claim? Are you looking for a free consultation with a ICBC claims lawyer? If so click here to arrange a free consulation with ICBC claims lawyer Erik Magraken.

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