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Author: Walter Law Group

Slip-and-fall accidents: liability issues

Posted on by Walter Law Group

Slip-and-falls are a common cause of personal injury accidents in Canada. If you are injured in a slip and fall, you may want to consider bringing an action to compensate you for your suffering.

An injured person would start a personal injury lawsuit against the owner or tenant (occupiers) of the premises where they were injured. Occupiers are responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of their property. They must remove or repair hazards on their property. These include:

  • Ice and snow
  • Wet surfaces
  • Uneven surfaces, such as bumps, cracks, potholes or gaps
  • Uneven, narrow or otherwise unsafe stairs
  • Unsteady or missing handrails
  • Poor lighting
  • Debris or other obstacles

The occupiers’ standard of care

Occupiers must meet a reasonable standard of care to protect those who enter their property. This is defined as anyone in control of the property, including the property owner, a tenant, or even a house sitter.

Occupiers can meet the required standard of care by:

  • Blocking access to possible hazards
  • Performing necessary maintenance
  • Performing regular inspections of their property and keeping records of the results
  • Posting signs to warn anyone entering the property of potential dangers
  • Removing dangers by cleaning up spills, snow or salting icy walkways

If an owner does not live on the property, they can still be found liable if the tenant or occupier fails to meet their duty of care.

The damages an injured person may sue for

An occupier could be found liable if a person slips or falls on their property and the occupier had not lived up to their duty of care to keep the property reasonably safe and obstacle-free. The injured person may sue for:

  • Pain and suffering
  • Medical expenses
  • Loss of income
  • Other expenses incurred as a result of the slip-and-fall

If a person slips and falls because the occupier did not remove ice from a walkway on their property, they may sue for any or all of the above damages, depending on their particular circumstances.

Establishing liability in slip-and-fall lawsuits

The court would consider several factors when determining whether an occupier is liable for the injuries suffered by the injured person. These factors include:

  • Was the accident reasonably foreseeable?
  • Did the occupier act according to acceptable standards of practice? An occupier would be expected to clear snow and ice within 12 hours after a snowfall ends
  • Did the occupier conduct regular inspections of their property?
  • How difficult would it have been to prevent the hazard from occurring?
  • Was a hazard allowed to exist for an unreasonable length of time?

A court will also consider whether the injured party’s own conduct contributed to the slip-and-fall injury. For example, if you ran on an icy walkway on the occupier’s property, you did not take reasonable care in the circumstances to protect yourself from being injured. This is known as contributory negligence.

If you were partially responsible for slipping and falling, you may still be entitled to damages, but they may be reduced.

Actions to take in the event of a slip-and-fall accident

If you slip and fall and think that the occupier of the place where you fell could be liable, you should try to document the conditions that led to the accident as soon as possible, including taking photographs or videos of the area. An occupier can clear ice or remove hazards very quickly after an accident has occurred.

You should also consult an experienced personal injury lawyer. They know how to investigate the accident and determine if the occupier could be found liable for your injury and build a case and to advocate strongly on your behalf in litigation.

Were you fired while you were on medical leave?

Posted on by Walter Law Group

Losing a job can be one of the worst things to happen to anyone in Ontario who is fighting to recover from an illness that caused a disability. If this happened to you, it could bring about financial hardship for you and your family. The lack of income along with mounting medical bills can cause undue anxiety that might even exacerbate your poor health.

This is where LTD comes into play. If you have suffered an injury or contracted a disease that prevents you from returning to work, you might be entitled to long-term disability benefits.

An employer’s duty to accommodate

Except under limited circumstances, your employer may not terminate your employment while you are on medical leave. While sadly some employers do fire workers purely because they are unhappy that the employees take medical leave, provincial and federal human rights laws protect workers from such discrimination. No one’s disability may be the grounds for dismissal.

Exceptions

Employment laws require an employer to provide accommodation if you become disabled due to ill health or an injury. Your boss could either modify your duties in a manner that would allow you to continue working or he or she could grant you medical leave. However, if an employer can prove any of the following circumstances, it might justify dismissal:

  • Cost: If your employer must spend unreasonable amounts of money to bring about modifications to accommodate you, the court might agree that there was no other option than to dismiss you.
  • Undue hardship: If your employer claims that accommodating you during your illness will cause unreasonable hardship for the company, he or she will have to meet a high threshold to motivate such claims.
  • Health risk: If you have a condition that is highly contagious, your employer might use that to justify dismissal. However, granting you medical leave would prevent exposure of other employees to your illness.
  • Disruption: Some employers claim accommodating an employee’s ill health can hamper workflow, but proving that could be tough.
  • Unrelated firing: Your boss might even attempt to convince the court that your termination had nothing to do with your debilitating injury or illness.

Your rights during this trying time

If your employer fires you while you are on medical leave, you have the right to launch a complaint. The employer will then have the burden to prove the need to terminate your employment. Fighting for your rights at a time when you are also battling an illness might be overwhelming, but help is available. The support and guidance from an Ontario lawyer who has experience in dealing with both wrongful terminations and long-term disability insurance may prove to be an invaluable asset to your cause.

Understanding the impact of TBI on a victim’s life

Posted on by Walter Law Group

If you have suffered a traumatic brain injury in an Ontario car accident, the consequences might be overwhelming. TBI can be life-changing, and it can affect every aspect of your being. It not only can significantly impact your immediate financial picture with medical expenses and lost income, but it can also have a long-term impact on your career, your health, your finances and your loved ones.

Although you might be entitled to benefits that could ease the financial burden substantially, it is crucial to have thorough medical examinations immediately after the accident along with frequent follow-ups because some the most severe symptoms of brain injuries may not be immediately evident.

What is it like to live with TBI?

While many of those with whom you interact might not notice the physical and mental effects you suffer, your family members and others who are close to you will be very aware because it may also influence their lives. Any of the following changes can occur and become part of living with TBI:

Sleep patterns: The quality of sleep you get can play a role in your quality of life. Every victim is unique, and you might find that you sleep significantly more or less than before your injury, or you might have problems with falling asleep. These changes could adversely influence other symptoms you suffer.

Headaches: These are some of the most frequently reported after-effects of brain injuries, and they tend to become chronic, often with debilitating pain.

Emotional changes: The area of the brain that suffered damage can determine the emotional impact of the injury. You might feel depressed or anxious, and these feelings may come and go. Rapid mood swings can also occur, and you might become disinterested or impartial to pre-injury interests.

Communication skills: Following conversations might be demanding, even more so among groups of people, and you might struggle to express your thoughts in words.

Thinking and concentration: Your ability to concentrate may be impaired, and so could your short-term memory. Furthermore, it might be a struggle to learn and retain new information.

PTSD: The trauma of the accident and the severity of your injury might lead to post-traumatic stress disorder, which could bring about anxiety over your safety and your inability to control your life. Individuals with PTSD often avoid other people, and some even seek refuge in alcohol or drugs to suppress these fears and feelings. Fortunately, help is available to intervene.

Child development: If the victim was your child and not you, even mild brain injuries can hamper the development of his or her brain. Your child might have a continuous struggle to keep up with his or her peers.

Help is available

Even if you suffer only some of these consequences, the impact on your life as you knew it could be severe. Fortunately, under Ontario laws, you have legal rights to recover damages if another party’s negligence caused your injury. Furthermore, other avenues may be available to pursue compensation for losses and even long-term disability benefits. An experienced lawyer can carefully analyze your unique circumstances and guide you through pursuing your most viable options.