Mussio Goodman is proud to announce another successful jury trial. After 15 days in court, our client was awarded $788,000 for injuries she suffered in a motor-vehicle collision that occurred nearly 10 years ago.

Before the Accident, our client was a dedicated mother and civil servant. As a single mother of two, she pursued an education and began a successful career for the federal government. Over the course of a decade, she advanced from the position of mail clerk to a counselling role, in which she gave lessons in trauma and cognitive behavioral therapy to prison inmates.

By the time of the Accident, she was well respected by both her colleagues and the prison inmates alike. She simultaneously managed her family life and career with ease. She was devoted to giving back to society, both by fostering children and by trying to better the lives of the inmates she counselled.

Her life changed when a white cargo van crossed into her lane of traffic and struck her vehicle head-on. She suffered significant physical and psychological injuries, including PTSD. Although she tried to return to work, the pain and trauma made it impossible to continue the career she loved.

Despite clear evidence of her ongoing disabilities, ICBC argued that she had sufficiently recovered within three months and that the loss of her career had nothing to do with her Accident injuries. They asked the jury to award only around $30,000, representing a few months of wage loss and rehabilitation treatments.

Clearly the jury disagreed with ICBC’s version of events. After hearing from family, friends, coworkers, and professionals who knew her best, they accepted our client’s account and awarded her $788,000 in damages.

Testifying in court was not easy for our client, but she was not willing to submit to ICBC’s tactics. Ultimately, her willingness to fight paid off, and this long chapter in her life finally ended.  We admire her for her strength and are proud to have represented her.

Mussio Goodman secured nearly $500,000 for our client at arbitration, despite ICBC’s argument for a mere $30,000 award.

Our client, who had recently moved to Canada from the UK, was rear-ended by a distracted driver who didn’t notice traffic slowing down for an emergency vehicle. The accident was traumatic, especially because our client’s young daughter was in the car and sustained injuries of her own. Our client suffered a mild traumatic brain injury, along with neck and back injuries, and was later diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome—a condition causing nerve compression near the collarbone, resulting in weakness, numbness, and tingling.

Before moving to Canada, our client had worked as a dental assistant and aspired to become a dental hygienist, a career move that would have significantly increased her income and ability to provide for her young family. However, the accident, particularly the thoracic outlet syndrome, reduced fine motor skills needed to pursue a dental hygiene career as she could no longer safely treat patients. Despite this setback, our client showed resilience, retraining as a legal assistant. She secured a position at a national law firm before transferring to the Department of Justice. Though she found little fulfillment in this work, she persevered to support her family.

ICBC employed aggressive tactics during the arbitration, presenting hours of invasive surveillance footage, scrutinizing minor discrepancies between her resume and actual experience, and calling former coworkers who barely knew her to testify. Despite medical experts—including those hired by ICBC—largely agreeing on the severity and nature of her injuries, ICBC suggested during the arbitration that our client was uninjured and entirely healthy, reducing her to tears.

While the arbitrator was left with the difficult task of assessing various probabilities of our client being accepted into hygiene school and securing a position, he was unmoved by much of ICBC’s argument. The outcome speaks for itself: our client received an award over 16 times higher than what ICBC suggested in closing arguments.

On February 1, 2025, after a two week trial and two days of jury deliberations, the jury returned a verdict in overwhelming favour of our client following a November 2019 car accident.

Our client had a long history of working full time in retail – often working 12-hour shifts five or six days a week. In 2018 our client left her retail job to find something new and meaningful. She found a position at a spa which seemed like the perfect fit – however, full time hours were not available right away. Rather than pass up the great opportunity, our client started part time while the spa owner started training her to take on a full-time management position.

Unfortunately, due to her injuries, our client was not able to return to work and realize these plans. Because she happened to be working part time when she was injured, ICBC argued that she would never have returned to full time work if the accident had not occurred. Because ICBC refused to make a reasonable settlement offer that accounted for her plans to return to full time hours, our client was forced to trial.

During trial, ICBC made a point of spending hours showing the jury our client’s social media posts – our client had not made her social media private as she had nothing to hide. ICBC argued that because she could smile on camera and sell homemade crafts at a market for a few hours a month that she was capable of returning to work.

Clearly, the jury disagreed. The jury awarded our client almost everything she claimed for and over 2 million dollars for her pain and suffering. In Canada, neither judges nor lawyers are allowed to suggest an award for pain and suffering – the court relies on the jury to reflect community standards. This is different from a trial by judge alone where the lawyers can cite similar cases and argue an appropriate dollar figure.

What the jury did not know is that in Canada there is a cap of about $450,000 for pain and suffering. After their initial verdict, the judge gave the jury a special instruction about this cap and explained to them that $450,000 would reflect catastrophic injuries like paraplegia. After late night deliberations, the jury ended up awarding $175,000 for pain and suffering.

All in all, the total award was about $1.3 million for pain and suffering, past and future wage loss, future care, and loss of housekeeping capacity.

We are pleased to announce that the BC Court of Appeal unanimously agreed with the position presented by partner Thomas O’Mahony of Mussio Goodman, holding that the trial judge had not considered all the evidence when assessing whether the Plaintiff had taken reasonable steps to find the driver in the hit and run case.

The Court of Appeal additionally dismissed the argument presented by the Respondent ICBC, clarifying the law that there is no ‘2-step’ assessment to determining whether a person has acted reasonably first at the scene of an accident, and then in the time frame thereafter. Justice Horsman, writing for the panel, stated:

[25]      I am not persuaded that the two-stage analysis set out in Cook is consistent with the language of s. 24(5) of the Insurance (Vehicle) Act or with the jurisprudence interpreting that provision. Undoubtedly, the question of whether a plaintiff has made all reasonable efforts to identify the other driver requires consideration of the plaintiff’s conduct at the time of the collision, as well as afterwards. This is because the question of whether the standard has been met must be assessed in the full circumstances of the case. It is a single inquiry into the reasonableness of the plaintiff’s efforts. There is, in my view, no justification in the language of s. 24(5), or the relevant case law, to bifurcate the analysis so as to create artificial constraints on what is meant to be a holistic assessment…

It is a reality that trial judges can and do make mistakes, just like everyone else. When this happens, it is important to have experienced appellate counsel like those at Mussio Goodman, who will fight to make sure that those mistakes don’t prejudice their clients.