ICBC Law

Further to my previous posts on this topic, the law is clear that a motorist who is rear-ended by another can be found at fault.  Such an outcome is somewhat unusual but given the right circumstances it can occur.  Reasons for judgement were released to today demonstrating this.

In today’s case (Cue v. Breitkreuz) the Plaintiff’s vehicle was involved in a rear-end collision.   He testified that he was rear-ended by the Defendant while he was stopped waiting to make a left hand turn.  An independent witness contradicted this account and testified that “the Plaintiff’s car accelerated, moved in front of the (defendant’s) truck, then slammed on the brakes” leaving the defendant with “(no) chance to stop before sliding into the plaintiff’s car”.

Mr. Justice Smith preferred the independent witness’ evidence over the Plaintiff’s and found the front motorist entirely at fault.  In reaching this conclusion the Court gave the following brief but useful summary of the law:

[15] Where there has been a rear-end collision, the onus shifts to the following driver to show that he or she was not at fault:  Robbie v. King, 2003 BCSC 1553 at para. 13. It is also the case that the driver of a following vehicle must allow a sufficient distance to stop safely in the event of a sudden or unanticipated stop by the vehicles ahead:  Pryndik v. Manju, 2001 BCSC 502 at para. 21, aff’d 2002 BCCA 639; and Rai v. Fowler, 2007 BCSC 1678 at para. 30.

[16] On the evidence before me in this case, I find that the defendant has discharged the onus upon him. I find that the plaintiff, by changing lanes in the manner that he did, created the situation in which the defendant did not have a safe stopping distance behind the plaintiff’s vehicle. Had the plaintiff not stopped, the defendant would have had the opportunity to slow down and allow the distance between them to increase. But when the plaintiff stopped immediately following the lane change, the defendant had no chance to avoid the collision. The defendant had no reason, in the moments leading up to the accident, to anticipate the plaintiff’s lane change and stop.

Here is video I recently uploaded to YouTube discussing injury claims (tort claims) brought by passengers when the driver of their vehicle is at fault for a single vehicle collision in British Columbia.

I have previously written about this topic and you can click here to read my archived posts discussing single vehicle collisions and the inevitable accident defence.

I hope this information is of assistance.

Well folks, it’s that time of year again, tax time.  Time to figure out how much we’ve all earned and make sure that we pay the Government their cut.

If you settled a tort claim from a BC motor vehicle collision do you have to pay income taxes on the amount?  The short answer is no.

Generally a personal injury settlement covers a lot of areas which are not taxable, for example money for pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of life, past medical expenses, future medical expenses. and so on. Oftentimes a settlement also includes money for past/future wage loss (also known as awards for diminished capacity).  You would think this portion of a settlement would be taxable but it is not.  The reason being that there is a restriction limiting past wage loss awards from BC motor vehicle accident tort claims to “net income”.  This restriction is set out in s.98 of the Insurance (Vehicle) Act which reads as follows:

You can click here to read more about the net income tax restriction for past wage loss awards in bc motor vehicle accident litigation.  As a result of s. 98 the amount of tax payable is already deducted before judgement/settlement making the money non-taxable.