ICBC Law

Adding to this site’s archived posts addressing Facebook photos in BC personal injury lawsuits, reasons for judgement were released today by the BC Supreme Court, Vernon Registry, finding such photos to be ‘of limited usefulness‘ when assessing a chronic soft tissue injury claim.

In today’s case (Dakin v. Roth) the Plaintiff was injured in three collisions.  The Defendant unsuccessfully argued that the Plaintiff  ”is not a credible witness”.  In support of this argument the Defendant introduced two years of photos taken from the Plaintiff’s Facebook profile.  In discussing the lack of impact of these photos Mr. Justice Cole provided the following reasons:

[55]         The defendants have entered into evidence photos posted on the plaintiff’s Facebook between 2007 and 2009, which the defendants say are inconsistent with her physical limitations.

[56]         I do not place much weight on those photographs. They are staged, at a party, and taken on holidays. As stated by Mr. Justice Goepel in Guthrie v. Narayan, 2012 BCSC 734 (at para. 30) in respect to Facebook photos:  “Those pictures are of limited usefulness. [The plaintiff] is seeking compensation for what she has lost, not what she can still do.” I agree.

 

Tags: bc injury law, Dakin v. Roth, facebook, Mr. Justice Cole

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 8th, 2013 at 1:48 pm and is filed under ICBC Privacy Issues, Uncategorized. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.