We have been asked many times why our clients are so loyal to us and why they refer their family and friends to Cowley & Company.  We have compiled the top five reasons:

No. 5 – We are big.  With seven lawyers and twenty-six persons in total staff, we are the second biggest car accident law firm in the province.  Naturally, we have more resources to service our clients.

No. 4 – Our settlements, on average, exceed the settlements negotiated by our competitors.  We work very hard to secure the biggest and fairest settlements for our clients.

No. 3 – We have an extensive network of medical specialists who can see our clients on short notice at no cost to the client.  In addition, we fund diagnostic testing ordered by the specialists, such as MRI, so that these tests can be done in a timely manner.

No. 2 – We have a heart.  If a client needs treatment recommended by his or her doctor and ICBC refuses to fund the treatment and the client cannot afford it, we somehow find a way to help out.

No. 1 – Are you ready?  (Drum roll …)  We have the best looking support staff of any car accident law firm in the province.  No kidding.  Check it out.

Not so fast, my friend.  Let's go back to first principles.  In order to have a valid claim, you need to have two elements:

1. You have to be injured – not just a boo boo kind of injury, but a real injury where it affects your work and/or leisure activities.
2. The incident that caused the injury must be the fault of somebody other than yourself.

Let's go back to our lettuce in the produce aisle story.  In slip and fall incidents, judges are very leery of claims.  The store is not automatically liable if lettuce ends up on the floor.  The store is only responsible when one or both of the following occurs:

1. The store had not maintained a reasonable schedule of inspections.  Most stores have a posted schedule which documents that there is a walk about every so and so hours to look for things like lettuce on the floor.
2. The lettuce incident occurs between inspections, somebody in the store is alerted to the hazard and fails to respond or responds inappropriately.

In other words, you are compensated only when you can prove that:

1. The inspection schedule of the store was unreasonable or not carried out, OR
2. The store was alerted to the hazard and did not respond in a reasonable and timely manner.

If you, a family member, a friend or co worker is injured in this manner, call us for a free consultation.

Two young men came to my office one day after they had been fired for from their jobs at a large chain department store for “theft”.  One fellow’s job title was “night clerk”.  His friend’s job title was “night supervisor”.  At that time, the night shift consisted of the two young men only.

The story went as follows:

1. It was the week before Halloween, and there were thousands of bags of candy for sale on the main floor.
2. Sneaky young children were able to temporarily get away from their parents to poke a hole in a candy bag, steal a candy, then take off.
3. Consistent with the store’s policy, if a bag of candies was torn, the entire bag of candies would have to be discarded and thrown into a large metal drum in the basement of the store.  Employees were told not to eat the candies as they were slated for disposal.
4. Despite the store’s policy, the more senior supervisors on all shifts would routinely disappear on their breaks to the basement, where they would eat the candy and return to work on a sugar high.  The senior supervisors encouraged the younger members of staff to do the same.

This activity had been going on a number of weeks when the store decided to put an end to it.  They chose to set up two sacrificial lambs, who we’ll call Mark and Jeff. T he store commissioned security guards to hide behind the candy drum and wait for Mark and Jeff to appear on their break for their candy feast.  As soon as my sweet toothed clients arrived at the candy drum, they were “arrested” and handcuffed.  They were then marched to a room where they were interrogated, threatened, and ultimately, dismissed from their employment .  The store then used the story of the dismissal to frighten its other employees from continuing with similar behaviour.

This went to trial before a senior judge of the Provincial Court.  It turns out that the supervisor of these two young men ordered the set up.  As the trial wore on and he was unable to explain his actions, he finally exploded and yelled, “I’m not going to answer any more of your stupid questions!”  He stomped out of the witness box towards where I was standing.  Two burly security guards appeared at my left and right shoulder.  The judge chastised the supervisor, after which he reclaimed his position in the witness box for the rest of my questions.  When the security guard took the stand, I brought him through all the procedures that he instituted the day of the arrest and compared them with the protocol as outlined in the employee manual.  Before I had even finished the last of my questions, the judge dismissed him out of the witness box saying, “I’ve heard enough”.

Needless to say, the judge’s verdict was in favour of my clients and was the largest verdict possible in Provincial Court at the time.

The mandate of an ICBC adjuster with an unrepresented client is to convince the client that he or she is not injured very much, that he or she will get better and that it is in his or her best interest to settle the claim quickly.  More commonly, the adjuster will attempt to convince the individual that hiring a lawyer will only unduly complicate the process and that in any event, lawyers will take half or more of the money.  After all, why would he or she need a lawyer when the ICBC representative is there to help them through a claim, right?  The truth is:

1. Adjusters get bonuses when they settle claims quickly and cheaply.
2. Particularly if you are in a no fault accident, the adjuster represents the person who caused the accident, not you.
3. Adjusters take courses in how to manipulate unrepresented people twisting the truth of what they tell them.
4. Adjusters discourage injured people from going to lawyers because they know that once the individual hires a lawyer, the jig is up.

Don't let ICBC adjusters take advantage of your patients.  They deserve a voice.  They deserve a level playing field.  Without a lawyer, the patients are sitting ducks for the ICBC adjusters' tricks.

This debate has been raging for some time with "armed camps" on either side of the debate.  Insurance companies responsible for compensating people with chronic pain (ICBC, WorkSafe BC, disability providers) espouse the theory that so-called passive modalities are indicated only in the acute stage of recovery from soft tissue injuries.  They would have us believe that chiropractic, physiotherapy, and massage therapy, to name the three most utilized forms of treatment, are useless once the patient enters into the chronic pain stage of recovery.  By World Health Organization (WHO) standards, chronic pain is any significant pain experienced six months or more after the triggering event.

Most clinicians have empirical evidence that stands for the proposition that patients do derive benefits from these forms of treatment in the chronic pain stage and that any theory that ignores this reality needlessly condemns the chronic pain patient to a lifetime of relentless pain.

As with most things in life, according to the most recent research published in the leading musculoskeletal journals, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Let's take a typical car accident victim with typical accident related soft tissue injuries.  In the first month or so, there is considerable swelling, spasm and reduced motion.  Analgesic and antispasmodic medication as well as gentle massage therapy and cryotherapy appears to be the best course of treatment in this early stage.  After the first month or so, chiropractic and physiotherapy appear to be the best choices for day to day management.  Considerable benefit is derived from using these forms of treatment, either exclusively or in combination, in the early months of recovery.  After six months, most patients have essentially returned to their pre-accident state.  They may have some mild occasional residual pain and occasional reduced range of motion.  Their work and leisure activities may be minimally affected.

However, for reasons that we don't fully understand, some of these patients do not return anywhere close to their pre-accident state at the six month post-MVA point in time.  They still have daily pain of at least a moderate nature that interferes with the performance of their work, leisure activities and household chores.  These are the chronic pain patients.  Typically, these patients go on to experience pain on an ongoing basis for the foreseeable future with periods of waxing and waning, i.e., there will be periods of acute flare-ups of indeterminable length.  The current medical literature would support the following treatment regiment for chronic pain patients:

1. An active rehabilitation programme supervised by a kinesiologist, chiropractor, physiotherapist, massage therapist or qualified personal trainer followed by a gym based or home based self directed and ongoing stretching and strengthening programme.
2. Medication or a passive modality or modalities of the patient's choice on an "as needed" basis during the acute flare ups to relieve pain and to reduce dependency on medication.

So, it appears that both sides of the debate are "correct".  The current medical literature would stand for the proposition that passive modalities for chronic pain patients are likely more palliative in nature than curative.  That is not to say that they are not indicated and any opinion to that effect flies in the face of current thinking.  Many patients prefer to avail themselves of chiropractic, physiotherapy and/or massage therapy during acute flare ups of their condition as opposed to relying on habit forming narcotics with their potentially harmful side effects.

Intersection accidents involving yellow or red lights and left hand turners cause the most problems when it comes to assessing liability/fault in car accidents.  Coupled with the fact that about half of the accidents in BC occur at intersections, it is a real issue that lawyers, adjustors, judges and juries grapple with on a daily basis in our legal system.

When the driver of Car A is traveling through an intersection and the driver of Car B, traveling in the opposite direction, is waiting to make a left hand turn at the same intersection, the following general rules apply:

1. When the light is green for both cars, Car A has the right of way and the driver of Car B must yield to Car A.  The driver of Car B must wait until it is safe to make his or her turn.
2. If the light turns yellow as Car A is approaching the intersection, the driver of Car A is obligated to take all reasonable steps to stop the vehicle at or near the stop line.  When Car A is stopped, the driver of Car B can complete his or her left turn, provided it is safe to do so.  On a "fresh" yellow light, the driver of Car A still has the right of way over the driver of Car B.
3. At some point, the yellow light becomes "stale" as the seconds tick off.  On a stale yellow light, the driver of Car B has the right of way as he or she must clear the intersection.  At this point, the driver of Car A must yield to the driver of Car B.

In short, as far as fault goes:

1. As the driver of Car A approaches the stop line, and the light turns yellow, he or she must try to stop.  If it is unsafe to do so, he or she must go through the yellow light cautiously.  While this is happening, the driver of Car B must yield to the driver of Car A and wait patiently for his or her opportunity to turn.  If an accident occurs during this scenario, it is usually considered to be the fault of the driver of Car B.
2. However, if the light turns yellow at a point where the driver of Car A could have stopped but chose not to do so and the driver of Car A speeds through a stale yellow light and an accident ensues, it is most likely the fault of the driver of Car A.

What makes the whole process controversial is that when an accident occurs, the drivers of the cars involved in the accident usually have different stories.  The Car A drivers all say that the yellow light was fresh.  The Car B drivers all insist that the yellow light was stale.  Independent witnesses, if available, can cast some light on the issue.  In the absence of witnesses, the individual credibility of the drivers becomes significant.  In many cases, the fault is simply assessed on each driver equally.

If you have been in an intersection accident at a yellow light, it is imperative that you obtain legal advice as the decision on the issue of fault directly impacts financial compensation.