After the residents of Alberta had learned how to deal with personal injuries, while respecting the established injury cap, the government created a new cap. Now the cap is $5,080, and it applies to minor injuries.
How does the government define a minor injury?
According to the government, a minor injury is a strain, a sprain or a whiplash associated disorder that could be placed in one of two categories. It could lack clinically relevant or neurological signs. Alternately, it could be a whiplash without an associated fracture or dislocation of the spine.
Expenses on which no cap exists
Victims can continue to claim compensation for medical expenses and income loss. Still, the absence of a cap for those expenses fails to deal with the absence of guidelines, concerning who gets to decide when and how a seemingly minor injury has begun to look problematic.
The importance of that unanswered question relates to the government’s definition for a minor injury. According to the government, that could be a whiplash injury with no clinically relevant signs. Yet the government does not indicate what signs must be apparent. For what indications should a doctor call for a test?
Even if the testing and treatment got completed within the required 2 years, what assurances could the patient have that the costs related to pain and suffering did not exceed $5,080? That is the concern of those lawyers that might get contacted by such a potential client.
Using an example to support the lawyers’ concerns
Suppose that a young adult passenger has hit her head against the side of the car during a collision. Initially she showed no clinically relevant neurological signs, so any compensation for pain and suffering were capped. Then three years later she suffered a seizure, and series of tests showed that she had enlarged ventricles (hydrocephalus) in her brain.
The known treatment for that condition entails introduction of a shunt, a tube that the patient must wear inside of her. Medicine now does a better job of keeping infections out of such a tube. Still the patient does have some limitations on her activity. If the boundaries surrounding those limitations were not clear, and if those same boundaries got crossed, the tube could stop to function properly.
That would necessitate surgery. It could force the former accident victim to seek time off from work. It could certainly add some unexpected pain and suffering into her life. Yet, because the initial symptom went unnoticed, that former victim would not be able to seek compensation for any pain and suffering. However, it is important to seek the assistance of an injury lawyer in Red Deer to know more about brain injury claims as quickly as possible, after an accident.
The above example underlines the need for better guidelines, concerning what sorts of testing ought to be done, before a victim’s injury gets stamped as one that is minor. In the above case, maybe a CT scan or an MRI, one that got carried out during the two years after the accident, could have offered some telltale evidence of the female’s true condition.