What you need to know:

Pain & suffering

  • If I don't settle my claim, how can I get a sense of how much a Supreme Court judge might award me for pain and suffering? Is it possible for me to review court decisions or summaries?
  • You may compare your claim to those of injured people whose cases have been decided by a judge by reading several judges' written reasons explaining their awards. One of the major factors judges consider in making their awards for pain and suffering is how long the injured person has or will in the future suffer significant pain and disability. If you have suffered a serious injury, you will not know your long-term outcome for months or even years, so it is difficult to make a comparison.

    If you decide to hire us to handle your claim, we will-at your request-provide you with ten or fifteen one-page summaries of recent decisions of Supreme Court judges in cases involving injuries similar to yours. We will then meet with you to discuss the case summaries and discuss which ones are more or less severe than the likely consequences of your injuries.

    Judges' full decisions are posted on the internet on the judgement database of the "Courts of British Columbia". We will print out for you the full decisions that are most similar to your own situation. Alternatively, we will provide you with the URL's of each of the judges' reasons so that you can read them on the internet.

    Most people find it easier to read the full decisions-which can be very long-after they have first read the one-page summaries. There are no summaries on the Court of British Columbia's judgement database. These summaries are created by private services and sold by subscription to lawyers, ICBC and Courthouse libraries.

    To get a flavour as to the range of what judges award for pain and suffering for particular injuries of various levels of severity, read a number of the "reasons for judgement" of judges on database of the "Courts of   British Columbia" at:
    http://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/search_judgments.aspx

    Once you have finished looking at some cases, be sure to return to our web site. (You may want to bookmark it now). We have more answers to your questions. Better yet, feel free to email or phone us with your questions, concerns or feedback.

    To the right of the title "Key Words" enter the type of injury you have suffered, e. g. , herniated disc, broken femur or just femur, shoulder, brain injury or brain, post traumatic stress, mild whiplash, moderate whiplash or severe whiplash, chronic pain, fibromyalgia.

    To the right of "Court Level" - select Court of Appeal and Supreme Court. The Court of Appeal cases are particularly useful regarding jury awards for pain and suffering. Jury awards themselves are not published since juries do not give any reasons for their awards, but many jury awards are appealed by ICBC (if the jury award was high) or by the injured person (if the jury award was low).

    To the right of "Judgement Date" - select only the present year first. After reviewing the cases for this year, then select the previous year and slowly work backwards in time.

    Then click on "Submit."

    Your search results will then appear. Read the highlighted version of each case.

    Go the the end of each case you select so you can see the summary the judge usually includes there. Then you can work your way backwards in that case and read what the judge concluded about each type or category of damages. Then if you are still interested in that case you can read the facts set out at the beginning of the decision.

    To scan the next case - If you are not interested in the case, or after you have read the case, use your web browser to go back to the "search judgements" page. Then click in the "search results" section for the next case under "Highlighted" to the right of the case name.

    Once you have finished looking at some cases, be sure to return to our web site. (You may want to bookmark it now). We have more answers to your questions. Better yet, feel free to email or phone us with your questions, concerns or feedback.

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Pain and suffering I Pre-accident problems & elderly victims I Cost of treatment, care& assistance in the future I Compensation for family members of the injured person I Past loss of income I Loss of future earning capacity I TNT's recent successes in recovering damages

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