What you need to know:

Work capacity evaluators.

  • My job involves sitting at a desk all day and working on a computer. My doctor has advised me to work as many hours per day as I feel I can. If I follow this advice, will it support my wage loss claim with ICBC?
  • From a legal perspective, this is very weak advice and will likely not support a wage loss claim. When your body maintains one position for an extended period it is called "static loading. " This is in contrast to "intermittent loading," which occurs when your body is moving. It is well accepted medically that many people with neck and back injuries have far more difficulty with static loading than with intermittent loading. Many physiotherapists recommend that people with office jobs take frequent breaks to stretch and move around.

    Because most doctors have great difficulty determining how many hours per day patients with these problems are able to work, they advise their patients that it is up to them to decide. In claiming damages for your loss of income and pain and suffering, a medical opinion on how much you can work is much stronger than your saying that you that you can only work 4 hours per day before the pain becomes intolerable.

    You may benefit from testing by a functional capacity evaluator, who is likely an occupational therapist. He or she will probably need a day or two to evaluate you in his or her office to reach a conclusion regarding your maximum work capacity. He or she may also go to your office to ensure that your office set-up is ergonomically correct. After such an assessment, the evaluator should be able to come up with a solid opinion on your limitations at work, at home and recreationally, and give you recommendations on improving the ergonomics of your worksite.

    Due to the length of time the evaluator must spend with you, this procedure can be expensive. Discuss with a lawyer if he or she will pay these fees and if ICBC will reimburse this expense when your case is resolved. We pay these fees all the time and ICBC almost invariably reimburses us at the end of the case.

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