Credibility Concerns Lead to Outright Rejection of Personal Injury Claim

Reasons for judgement were released this week by the BC Supreme Court, Prince George Registry, outright rejecting a personal injury claim as a result of credibility concerns.
In today’s case (Fancy v. Gareau) the Plaintiff was involved in a 2008 rear end collision.  Fault was admitted.   At the time of the collision the Plaintiff was on a WCB claim.  She claimed the collision caused a neck injury and that this was not a pre-existing problem.  In the course of the trial this claim proved unreliable and the Court ultimately dismissed the claim.  In reaching this result Mr. Justice Parrett noted as follows:
[69]         Perhaps the most startling reversal in her evidence was the cross-examination of the plaintiff about a portion of Exhibit 8.
[70]         This document was a spreadsheet prepared by the plaintiff and her husband as a part of their submission to the Workers Compensation Board to help establish that she had suffered “an upper back injury”.  In item 11 on page 2 of the spreadsheet the plaintiff specifically refers to the August 5, 2008 Physiotherapy Initial Notification (Exhibit 10) referred to above.  The excerpt contained in item 11 specifically notes that the “Injury Recorded on Claim: Neck” and then records the following submission regarding the document:
Corroborating Documentation of stiff neck from workplace injury (July 8, 2008) – this injury is NOT from the MVA as suggested by CD in Item 32.
[71]         The last column of this spreadsheet is entitled “Proof of:” and is divided into two columns, the first of which is “Upper back/left arm injury”.
[72]         The plaintiff entered “Yes” in this column with respect to Item 11.
[73]         When confronted with this document the plaintiff conceded that when the Workers Compensation Board case manager said that the neck injury was not as a result of the workplace injury but from the motor vehicle accident she disagreed and said ‘no, I injured my neck in the workplace accident’.
[74]         When pressed on this point she advised the court that:
The upper back, to me, includes the neck.
[75]         This evidence was given without the faintest embarrassment or apparent realization that the previous day she had testified that:
When I say upper back I do not mean my neck.
…
[125]     This is a personal injury action in which the issue is causation.  Simply put the question amounts to this – Was the plaintiff injured or did she have existing injuries or conditions aggravated by the motor vehicle collision on September 30, 2008?
[126]     The evidence presented to the court by the plaintiff is devoid of medical evidence and opinion touching on the issue of causation.
[127]     The only expert opinion placed before the court is that of Dr. McKenzie who first saw the plaintiff some 28 months after the motor vehicle collision.  In providing Dr. McKenzie with the history he used as the foundation of his opinion the plaintiff misrepresented and altered the facts and withheld critical information about her physiotherapy treatments and pre-existing symptomology.
[128]     The effect of her actions destroyed any value of Dr. McKenzie’s opinion…
[139]     The plaintiff’s action is dismissed.