Honestly, the majority of people are instantly going to think of general damages as they hear personal injury case. These are the damages for pain and suffering. While most of you might believe that this is the field in which you can get the most out of your personal injury claim, there are many more headings as well as heads of damages for your particular injury case which could get you a lot more money than damages for pain and suffering. One of the first things that your lawyer has to do is to properly quantify your damages and to determine exactly how much is your case work. Of course, this is a lot easier said than done.
When it comes to damages for pain and suffering, there are a few specific things which have to be taken into consideration, especially when it comes to Ontario. The Supreme Court of Canada managed to issue 3 distinctive rulings on three separate cases which came to be known in the legal doctrine as the “trilogy”. These were the cases in which the Supreme Court effectively put a cap on general damages. Unlike the USA, where you can get millions and millions of dollars for general damages, in Canada you can only get as much as $356,000. That’s right – $356,000 and not a penny more. However, this isn’t necessarily a negative solution – it has its pros and cons so let’s take a look at them.
On the plus side, it puts a metric on something which can’t be properly quantified. You can’t really measure exactly how much pain and suffering is a victim going through, let alone to determine how much money this is worth. It’s a strictly subjective issue. With this in mind, the $356,000 cap is somehow making matters easy to quantify. This is by virtue of setting a maximum amount to the damages of the kind.
However, on the downside, this is pretty limiting. Things get especially bad if you are involved in a car accident because there you have a $30,000 deductible, if your claim is under $100,000. So, let’s say that you get an award of $50,000 after years of court procedures. You really only get $20,000 as the first $30,000 are deducted.
When you add things up it’s definitely not an easy decision. However, as we mentioned earlier, there are a lot of headings and heads of damages in personal injury cases which could make you a lot more money. Furthermore, $356,000 is definitely a lot of money. Sure, when you stack them up against the pain and suffering that you might have gone through they might seem inconsiderable, but as we said – there are pros and cons.
With more stringent rulings on compensation claims, it is important that you hire the professional services of a personal injury lawyer before you file for a claim. This will help you get a better chance at winning maximum compensation.
