The $2,500.00 cap on so called “minor injuries” that was introduced in Nova Scotia in 2003 is still having ramifications to innocent victims 7 years later.
The recent decision of Awalt v. Blanchard is a case in point.
Linda Awalt is a 52 year old personal care worker who was injured in a car accident in September 2004.
This is interesting. The Globe and Mail has reported that researchers have discovered that women are more susceptible to sports related concussions than men.
The problem is that most “return to play”criteria are based on research on male athletes. This may result in injured female athletes being returned to play before they are fully recovered, resulting in a greater chance of multiple concussions and long term brain damage.
Thanks to my colleague Bruce Stern for the heads up on the article.
ThinkFirst Canada is a nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing brain and spinal cord injuries.
They have released a new educational video about concussions in hockey. But the medical issues apply to all sports.
This video should be required watching for ANY parent that has children playing minor sports.
Insurers Using Social Media
There was an interesting article in Lawyers Weekly pointing to developments in the United States where insurance companies are using information collected from public social media sites such as Facebook, My Space and Twitter to conduct risk assessments when underwriting insurance policies.
The article indicates that Canadian insurance companies are watching the developments “very closely” according to Mark Kline, a spokesman for the Insurance Bureau of Canada. According to Kline:
Expert evidence forms the core of any personal injury claim. In almost every personal injury case the plaintiff must provide scientific evidence, usually if the form of testimony from teatingg doctors and other health care providers about issues surrounding causation of the plaintiff’s injuries.
Personal injury claims often boil don to a so-called “battle of the experts” and the judge or jury is forced to decide which evidence they feel is more reliable or reasonable.
Interpreting Scientific Evidence Challenging
Car accidents are the leading cause of death for children age 4 and up. Child car seats have been shown to lower the chances of death in a car accident by 28 per cent compared with seatbelts. They have also been found to reduce the severity of car crash injuries.
Most child car seat manufactures recommend that children stay in rear facing seats until they are 1 year old or 9 kilos as a guideline, before being placed in forward facing seats.
Rear Facing Seats Safer
But after reviewing data from injuries due to car crashes over several years that shows that children in rear-facing car seats are more likely to surivive, the American Academy of Pediatrics and U.S. traffic safety officials have teamed up to release new guidelines that recommend toddlers should sit in rear-facing car seats until age two. If a child under the age of two outgrows the weight limits for their infant car seat, they should be moved to a rear-facing convertible car seat and kept in that position until age two.
Body Checking Increases Risk of Bain Injury
Perhaps this new research should have been published in the Journal of Common Sense (if there was such a thing they probably wouldn’t have enough subscribers).
A new study of minor hockey players has found that the incidents of brain injury in 9 and 10 year olds has increased ten times since Hockey Canada decided to allow body checking at a younger age in minor hockey.
Nova Scotia has had a mandatory helmet law for motorcycles (and bicycles) for many years. But there are some jurisdictions in the United States (Florida and Texas for example) where motorcycle helmets are not required.
There are “mountains” of studies that prove that helmets reduce the risk of death and brain injury after a motorcycle accident. But opponents to mandatory helmet laws have claimed for some time that helmets increase the risk of spinal injury because of the torsion laced on the neck by a heavy helmet.
Pre-Existing Injuries
It is rare that a person injured in a car accident, medical malpractice claim, or some other accident doesn’t have some pre-existing health problems or conditions that may – or may not – play a part in the injuries that are the subject of litigation.
What Caused the Injuries?
This is awesome! Researchers have found a simple test that can be conducted in less than a minute to accurately detect the early signs of concussion.
Undiagnosed concussions are a serious probem since the brain damaging effects can be cumulative. Recent injuries in professional sports like hockey (Syd Crosby) football (Green Bay’s Aaron Rogers) and baseball (MVP candidate Justin Morneau) have raised public awareness of the damaging effects of concussion.
But more needs to be done and anything that makes it easier to diagnose the problem means that more athletes will get the chance to receive proper treatment before suffering a potentially debilitating brain injury.
