Stiffer Penalties Needed For Drunk Drivers

Toronto personal injury lawyer Albert Coforzi: In the wake of a tragic accident in Ontario this past Sunday that saw three children and a grandfather killed by a drunk driver, we find a woman in Nova Scotia being sentenced for driving drunk with her kids in the car (bold mine):

A Cole Harbour mother has been sentenced to nine months in jail for driving while heavily impaired with her children in the car. 

Jennifer Ann Sims, 38, blew more than five times the legal limit on the breathalyzer after RCMP arrested her on the Forest Hills Parkway in Cole Harbour on April 6, 2014. 

Sims, who has three previous convictions for drunk driving, pleaded guilty this spring to charges of impaired driving, driving while disqualified and breaching probation...
“I’m not confident that she would not reoffend,” the judge said Monday. 

“Courts cannot wait until Ms. Sims kills somebody to send her a message, and others in the community, that this type of conduct is not acceptable and must be denounced.”

Three previous offenses? No wonder there are calls for stiffer penalties that include jail time. Clearly the message of "don't drink and drive" isn't getting through.

As for the alleged offender in the Vaughan case, he doesn't have a history of driving drunk, although he does have prior speeding, electronic device use in the car, and drunk and disorderly charges. He is now charged with 18 offences in connection with this crash. I expect that the Crown will try hard to make an example out of this case.

My thoughts and prayers are with the grieving family.

I am a personal injury lawyer with Pace Law Firm in Toronto. Contact me if you have any questions.

Doctor Fired For Not Giving WSIB The Answer They Wanted?

Toronto personal injury lawyer Albert Coforzi: An interesting case out of Hamilton, which throws some light on the behind-the-scenes workings of insurance companies and medical exams.

Doctor's Orders

If a doctor examines you and says you're sick or injured, it's the medical expert's opinion that counts, right? Perhaps not:

A Hamilton-area physician is suing the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board and her former employer for $3.2 million, claiming she was fired when she wouldn’t deliver a medical opinion that suited the WSIB.

Dr. Brenda Steinnagel, 50, is alleging in her statement of claim that she was terminated last April after the WSIB repeatedly demanded that her employer, Vaughan-based Workplace Health and Cost Solutions, change the medical opinion she authored on a hospital worker who was claiming benefits after suffering head injuries while trying to restrain a patient.

Steinnagel had concluded in late 2014 that the worker’s emotional issues could be related to his workplace accident, according to the statement of claim. Within two weeks of delivering her opinion, she alleges the WSIB requested clarification.

After further review, which included speaking with the worker’s family doctor, Steinnagel says she reached the same result in her medical opinion, but “the WSIB continued to resist her conclusion,” according to the statement, filed in Toronto Superior Court in July.

The doctor goes on to allege that when she refused to tailor her opinions to what the WSIB adjuster wanted, she was told that she was no longer going to perform such exams. She also alleges that WSIB pressured her boss (WHCS), reminding them of the volume of work the doctor's company did for WSIB. It is alleged that when the doctor still refused to change her medical opinion of the case, she was fired.

"Independent" Medical Exams

These allegations have yet to be proven in court, but I can assure you that every personal injury lawyer worth their salt is keeping a close eye on this case.

For those of us who do personal injury litigation, so-called "independent " medical exams by doctors hired by motor vehicle insurers are predictable to a very high degree: Dr. So-and-so hired by insurance company Such-and-such is going to give you outcome X. My colleagues and I often wonder whether the volume of work given to these doctors influences the outcome in the same manner as alleged in the article. That is, is there at least an implied message that if you want future files, you'd better provide satisfactory opinions.

I am going to watch this case carefully.

I am a personal injury lawyer with Pace Law Firm in Toronto. Contact me if you have any questions.

Insurance Companies Playing A Shell Game With Your Benefits

The benefits you will lose as of June 1, 2016.

Toronto personal injury lawyer Albert Coforzi: A couple of weeks ago I alerted readers to the coming changes to Ontario car insurance. The government of Ontario, in close collaboration with insurance companies, has planned these changes for motorists. You may recall the letter you received asking you to collaborate on something that will greatly affect your life. No? Alas, it's too bad you missed the memo.

Benefits gutted again

Starting on June 1, 2016, standard medical, rehabilitation and attendant care benefits will have a maximum combined limit of $65,000 for non-catastrophic cases. After that money is spent, you are on your own. Since September 2010, that limit has been $86,000. Before that it was $172,000.

While the cost of health care keeps rising and rising, the money available for your benefits keeps dropping and dropping. Further, as of June 2016, the coverage period will be cut in half from the current 10 years to a mere 5 years.

Now you see me. Now you don't.

It's not that the extra coverage isn't available. It's that you must now pay extra for it, as more of your benefits - and their duration - become "optional."

Insurance companies love the optional stuff. "Hey, we didn't remove coverage. We just wanted you to decide for yourself if you really need it." How would a regular consumer know that? Experience has shown me that these options are rarely purchased and most consumers do not know that they even exist, let alone that the coverage might change on some arbitrary future date.

Indeed, the average person who purchases car insurance does not know that their benefits are ever-changing. Ask five of your friends if any of them have heard that the standard benefits I listed above will be cut by over twenty grand next year. I'd be floored if any of them have.

From out of nowhere

That's part of the problem. Neither the insurance companies nor the government throw up red flags to warn consumers of car insurance changes. Well, sometimes a flag does go up, as when the government touts a plan to lower your car insurance premiums by 15%. Guess how that went?

I'll have more on the 2016 changes in the weeks ahead. In the meantime, it is worth looking at your car insurance policy and asking questions not only of your insurance representative, but also your MPP. Ask them how your policy will change next year and why. The answers may amuse you and frighten you in equal amounts.

I am a personal injury lawyer with Pace Law Firm in Toronto. Contact me if you have any questions.

Are Your Medical Records Up For Auction?

Toronto personal injury lawyer Albert Coforzi: A hospital employee recently got caught with their hand in the cookie jar:

A former Rouge Valley hospital clerk has pleaded guilty to stealing thousands of patient records and selling them to financial brokers over the course of more than a decade. 

Shaida Bandali, 61, who worked at Rouge Valley from 1995-2014, accessed confidential maternity ward records, including the names and contact information of mothers as well as the names and birthdates of their babies, and sold them for between $1 and $2.75 each to salespeople of Registered Education Savings Plans, according to an agreed statement of facts read out in court Monday.

Apparently the leaking of personal, confidential information by Bandali was not itself a crime but the sale of the information created a breach of the Securities Act.

Hopefully hospital administrators and the law will continue to root out the sources of these "favours."

This reminds me of someone who came to see me at my office not too long ago. They described having been to the emergency room following a car accident. Nothing unusual there. However, the next day they were called by a clinic saying, “We are following up on your visit to emergency yesterday to arrange for your physio assessment.”

Assessment? Clinic? News to the patient.

I wonder how that clinic got the patient's personal information. I also wonder who received a little “show of gratitude” for the info.

Hopefully hospital administrators and the law will continue to root out the sources of these "favours."

I am a personal injury lawyer with Pace Law Firm in Toronto. Contact me if you have any questions.