Pursuing a claim against ICBC can be confusing. The following is an email Paul Hergott sends to clients after an initial consultation. It will help you take the proper actions following an injury, assist you in finding a lawyer, and answer questions you may have about your claim.
The size of your claim will depend on how long, and to what extent, you suffer losses arising from the injuries you sustained. Claim value has nothing to do with the crash itself, how much damage there was to the vehicles, or how ridiculously careless the offending driver happened to have been. If injuries resolve completely within a short period of time, then the losses will be relatively small, and therefore the amount of compensation required to compensate for those losses, will be relatively small. If injuries do not resolve completely, perhaps leaving you with some degree of permanent symptoms, then the losses will be relatively large, and the cost to the insurance company to fairly compensate for those losses will be relatively large.
I confirm my advice that, generally speaking, it makes sense to hire a lawyer in all but the most minor of injury claims. Your claims, quite obviously, are not at that minor level. One of my first newspaper columns, published January 28, 2007, dealt specifically with the importance of hiring a lawyer to assist with a personal injury claim and I invite you to read it following this hyperlink: It’s worth hiring a lawyer. A more recent column, published May 1, 2011, reinforces that advice by explaining about how auto insurance works: Many drivers are misinformed about their auto insurance.
Please note that while I have advised you to hire a lawyer to handle your claim, I have not advised you that the lawyer has to be me. Fair results can be obtained by any competent personal injury lawyer. You owe me absolutely nothing for the bit of time I have spent talking to you and sending you this e-mail. I encourage you to take the choice of personal injury lawyer very seriously and do whatever you feel is necessary to make the right choice, including talking to members of the medical community (doctors/therapists/specialists), talking to friends/family/co-workers, and interviewing other lawyers to ensure you find the best fit.
Please be clear that I would very much like the opportunity to pursue justice on your behalf. I am not trying to discourage you from hiring me. I simply want you to feel comfortable that the advice I am giving you is given in good faith, and not for my self-interest. I am thankful that I have developed a reputation in this community such that I do not need to “chase” files. My “paid” advertising budget is extremely low. In fact, I am having to turn many cases away. When I agree to take on a case, I want to ensure that my client has made an informed decision to work with me, and has complete confidence that I have “the stuff” to carry through with my commitment to achieve justice.
If you end up choosing to work with me, the terms of my engagement will be in accordance with the attached Contingency Agreement.
In the meantime, I quite emphatically offer you the following advice, or “coaching”, to maximize the probability that you will achieve a fair result in your claim:
1. As discussed, it is important to “aggressively pursue treatment”, by following up regularly with your doctor and following your doctor’s, chiropractor’s, physiotherapist’s, etc. recommendations 100% fully. Don’t make any treatment decisions without first clearing them with your medical team and CERTAINLY don’t let ICBC make any treatment decisions for you by, for example, cutting off funding for treatment. I invite you to read my May 30, 2010, column on this key point: Important to continue with treatment.
2. If you cannot afford to pay for medically recommended treatment on your own, I strongly recommend that you do whatever you have to in order to come up with financing. Sometimes, this means borrowing money. If so, I recommend that your find the absolute lowest cost financing which is often from friends or extended family. Rather than paying a bank perhaps 5% interest on a line of credit, a credit card company several times that, or a “litigation lender” that you could find on the internet 30-40% interest, you can pay a family member something like 3% interest, more than you would pay to a bank on a line of credit and more than your family member would earn on a secure investment, and everybody wins. Any lawyer you hire can prepare the paperwork to document and secure the loans, and you can claim reimbursement for that interest from ICBC.
3. Please “preserve the evidence” by keeping a journal or diary. The diary needn’t record dates and times of doctor, massage, physiotherapy, etc. visits, which will all be recorded by your doctor and therapists. The diary is for practical day to day impacts of injury, such as how the injury stops you from doing such and such or how doing this and that brought on muscle spasms, how it FEELS to be injured, etc., etc. You may wish to read my May 6, 2007, column on this important topic: Don’t let evidence fade: Document it.
4. As decisions have to be made about what work duties to avoid, how many hours a day to work, whether or not you should leave work for a period of time, etc., follow your doctor’s recommendations, whatever they may be, keeping your doctor updated as to how things are going because the impact of working on your symptoms will influence the doctor’s recommendations. I invite you to read this June 24, 2007, column explaining my advice in this regard: Ground rules for returning to work.
5. You should take the same approach when returning to your non-work activities. My July 1, 2007, column specifically on that topic is as follows: Talk to your doctor about returning to your activities.
One of the things we discussed is the “interesting” project of calculating and proving the loss of self-employment income arising from your injuries. Some (likely significant) brainstorming needs to be done to determine to what extent you have lost income since the crash and also to consider potential future losses, and how to prove any of these losses when that time comes. I invite you to review two columns that I’ve written about proving income loss as well as the issue of “mitigation”:
1. One, published August 29, 2010: If you can’t prove what earnings would be you’re outta luck
2. The other, published September 5, 2010: Pretend you won’t be compensated to mitigate your losses
Please don’t even consider settling your claim until your symptoms have either completely and totally resolved or you have reached a point with treatment that you are not getting any better and the medical system has thrown up their hands in defeat, such that you know what your future symptoms will be. All too often, injured victims settle their claims for unfairly low compensation on the optimistic prediction of medical people or an insurance adjuster that injuries will resolve over time. I invite you to read my January 21, 2007, column, Want a quick settlement to your injury claim? Think again.
Please also be clear that there is a two year limitation period within which a lawsuit to enforce a claim arising from a car crash injury must be commenced, failing which your rights arising from that crash might forever be lost. Ensure you have retained a lawyer well before that limitation date arises, if that is your choice.
If you choose to work with me, I will look forward to our journey for justice. On receipt of a signed Contingency Agreement, my staff will set up a “Comprehensive Memo Project”, which involves rather extensive interviewing so that I can get a full picture of your pre-crash condition, the crash, injuries sustained, treatment to date, and impact on your life to date so that I can get rolling on your case.
If you have an ICBC claim and you would like me to represent you against ICBC, I invite you for a free initial consultation. I provide services to all locations in British Columbia.
Please do not hesitate to contact my office at:
Phone: 1-855-HERGOTT (437-4688)
Email: info@hlaw.ca
