ICBC Doctor Found to be "More of An Advocate Than An Independent Professional"
Adding to this site’s archives of judicial criticism of ‘advocate’ expert witnesses, reasons for judgement were released this week by the BC Supreme Court, Kelowna Registry, with critical comments of an orthopaedic surgeon frequently hired by ICBC.
In today’s case (Hay v. Benzer) the Plaintiff was involved in a pedestrian/vehicle collision in 2008. ICBC had the Plaintiff assessed by a orthopaedic surgeon who largely limited the connection between the collision and the Plaintiff’s symptoms. The Court placed “very little weight” on this evidence and in doing so Mr. Justice Cole provided the following comments:
[13] At the request of ICBC she saw Dr. O’Farrell on July 28, 2009. He is an orthopaedic surgeon. He does a significant amount of work for ICBC and appeared to me to be more of an advocate than an independent professional. He found that the plaintiff would not have any long-term effects from the motor vehicle accident. He had documents only from a physiotherapist dated June 16, 2009. Dr. O’Farrell did admit that if pain was still present two and a half years after the accident that it would most likely be a long-term or permanent pain. Dr. O’Farrell did not produce any notes of his assessment claiming they were most likely in another file. I give Dr. O’Farrell’s evidence very little weight.