Court Finds Dr. Koch "To Be More of An Advocate For ICBC"

Adding to this site’s archived posts highlighting judicially rejected expert witness evidence reasons for judgement were released last week by the BC Supreme Court, Victoria Registry, criticizing the evidence of a defense medical opinion.
In last week’s case (Kristiansen v. Grewal) the Plaintiff was injured in a 2009 collision.  Fault was admitted.    The Plaintiff alleged a host of consequences from the crash.  Although the Court found that some of the Plaintiff’s difficulties originated from issues other than the collision the crash was causative of some of her difficulties.
In the course of the trial the Court heard from a variety of physicians.  Once expert, Dr. Koch, hired by ICBC, was found to be an advocate and his evidence was not accepted for this reason.  In rejecting his evidence Mr. Justice Romilly provided the following brief comments:
 [14]         Among the experts, I found that Dr. Koch’s report and his testimony in court seemed to lack objectivity. In fact, he seemed to be more of an advocate for the defendants and ICBC. I have difficulty accepting any of his evidence.