A recent case in the British Columbia Supreme Court has made headlines across the province. Colloquially referred to as the “Dominatrix Case”, the lawsuit involved a young girl who, after suffering a moderate brain injury in a motor vehicle accident, went on to pursue a career as a sexual dominatrix.

The Court found that the brain injury she sustained dampened her ability to make wise and low-risk life choices, and was therefore responsible for her foray into this rather taboo profession.

The Huffington Post recently featured the case and interviewed the Plaintiff at length. The article also discussed the broader implications of the Court’s decision, during which Eric Goodman provided the following analysis:

Cases where someone must show how an injury compelled a job switch after an accident usually involve heavy labourers forced into more sedentary work, said Eric Goodman, a personal injury lawyer based in Vancouver.

“This case further affirms the prevailing medical wisdom that even a mild traumatic brain injury can dramatically change one’s personality and decision making processes, often permanently and with far-reaching negative effects on one’s quality of life and earning capacity,” he told HuffPost B.C.

Goodman applauded the court for disregarding Afonina’s pre-accident teen “quirks” and focusing instead on evidence that she had a bright and prosperous future ahead of her before the crash.

“It was heartening to see the court refuse to judge the book by its cover,” said Goodman.

We are pleased to announce that the Supreme Court of Canada denied ICBC permission to appeal our client’s victories in the Supreme Court of British Columbia and the British Columbia Court of Appeal, a decision that finally compels ICBC to compensate our client for her serious spinal injuries.

As previously announced, the British Columbia Court of Appeal ruled in our client’s favour, overturning the lower court’s decision and prohibiting ICBC from relying on a zipline waiver to deny compensation for injuries sustained in a car accident.

ICBC sought “leave” (in other words, permission) to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa.

ICBC’s argument was that the decision was wrong and has implications across the country.

We argued in response that the Court of Appeal decision was properly decided, and that the issue specifically pertains to British Columbian legislation (the Insurance (Vehicle) Act), and therefore the highest Court in the land need not intervene.

We are pleased to report that  Anthony Eden of Mussio Goodman successfully defended our client’s interests by preventing a Defendant IME (independent medical examination) with a neurologist expert of the insurance company’s choosing.

Insurance companies are entitled to defend a claim by compelling the injured person to attend an IME with doctors of their choosing. The law is clear that Plaintiffs must attend these appointments as long as they are reasonable. Unfortunately, sometimes the insurance companies cross the line in terms of what is reasonable under the law.

In a recent case, we filed a lawsuit on behalf of our client because his disability benefits had been unduly terminated. In order to prove his claim, we retained the services of a doctor who is an expert in the field of chronic pain. This doctor also has a broad range of expertise, including neurology.

Additionally, we relied on our client’s family doctor in support of his ongoing disability. In response to these opinions, the insurance company attempted to disprove the claim using four expert reports; they sought one report from a psychiatrist, one from a vocational specialist, and one from an occupational physician. Then, they tried to obtain an additional report from a neurologist, claiming that our chronic pain expert was essentially a neurologist as well.

The insurance company therefore argued that they needed a neurology report to defend the claim. This was notwithstanding the fact that the insurance company had already sent our client to a neurologist in 2002 who wholeheartedly supported his disability. Notably, they wanted an updated report with a different neurologist, even though there had been no evidence of any neurological change since the 2002 report.

We opposed this IME  on the basis that it would make the trial unfair. The law is clear that the parties must be on equal footing with regard to the expert evidence. The Master in Chambers ultimately agreed with our argument, the reasons for which were published in Korpa v. Co-Operators Life Insurance Company 2014 BCSC 2246:

[26] The issue in this case is whether, in all the circumstances, there is a need to put the parties on an equal footing with respect to the medical evidence or, as it has sometimes been described, to balance the playing field.

[27] I have concluded that, for the following reasons, Mr. Korpa should not be required to attend an IME with Dr. Dost…

[36] In all these circumstances, I am not satisfied that the defence has shown the need for examination by a neurologist to balance the playing field.