BC Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Practice Manual

Get results in a motor vehicle accident claim whether acting for the insured or insurer!

This publication is essential for: personal injury and insurance defence and plaintiff lawyers.

Current to: March 1, 2016

The BC Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Practice Manual is your guide to bringing or defending a motor vehicle accident claim in British Columbia. Written and reviewed by leading members of the plaintiff and defence bar, this comprehensive guide covers all important topics that may arise in an action and is essential to your practice.

With this resource, you will have:

• analysis of the latest law on the range of topics in a motor vehicle claim
• practice tips on how to deal with substantive and procedural issues in the claim
• the forms and precedents you need, available as downloads or on a CD
• convenient checklists on procedures to follow
• annual updates

Online access conveniently places this resource at your fingertips and is fully searchable with links to full-text cases and legislation.

ONLINE ONLY annual subscriptions are available. Subscribe now.

Highlights of the 2016 update

• includes guidance to defence counsel when settling claims in situations where there is a risk the total claims may exceed the policy limits
• includes discussion of all significant British Columbia Court of Appeal and British Columbia Supreme Court decisions over the past year, including decisions that consider the following
  • grabbing a steering wheel without intent to take control of the vehicle constitutes use of the vehicle by a passenger
  • if there is no emergency, the agony of the moment defence doesn’t apply
  • the relevance of the “golden years” doctrine when assessing non-pecuniary damages
  • augmenting non-pecuniary damages can be appropriate where the accident aggravated a pre-existing drug dependency
  • it is an error to treat an injured person’s anticipated career as a certainty when there is evidence of considerable uncertainty of prospects, but the generally accepted approach to assessing claims of loss of income earning capacity is to refer to statistical evidence, and then consider positive and negative contingencies in adjusting the result
  • to benefit from coverage against theft and vehicle damage alleged to have resulted from that theft, the insured must establish that coverage for theft was in place at the time of the alleged theft
  • the requirement for and detail of disclosure relating to settlement agreements made between the plaintiff and one of several defendants, and when pleadings must be amended to avoid the action being dismissed
  • that counsel should consider the nature and extent of any no-fault benefits available to a non-resident plaintiff in their home jurisdiction before making a Part 7 benefit claim on their behalf in order to maximize benefits and avoid liability
  • defendants who delay obtaining expert evidence until after they have received the plaintiff’s expert evidence do so at their peril
  • the defendant faces a higher threshold when seeking a further physical examination by a different expert
  • an expert who destroys digital recordings of their examination of the plaintiff has not complied with their obligations under the Rules
  • the factors that the court will consider in deciding whether to exercise its discretion to issue a third-party notice
  • the admissibility of expert evidence is assessed using a two-step test
  • joint meetings between a driver and passenger who are in a common law relationship and the lawyer do not rebut the inference that confidential information was imparted
  • when the plaintiff changes lawyers, both of whom are acting on a contingency basis, there is no stacking of the contingency fees
  • solicitor-client privilege can protect communications between a solicitor and third party if the third party is performing a function on the client’s behalf which is integral to the relationship between the solicitor and the client, or the third party serves as a line of communication between the solicitor and client
  • production of some privileged documents by a party does not negate that party’s ability to claim privilege over all documents
    

     

    Product Type	Price
    Online-Only	$219/year
    Print + Online Package	$299
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CLEBC Legal Editor
Morag MacLean
mmaclean@cle.bc.ca