Lawyer says injury cap should be removed, not raised
Posted Apr 29, 2010 05:59:58 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A Bedford lawyer says the newly-announced changes to the soft-tissue injury payment cap aren’t good enough.
Barry Mason has been fighting a legal battle over the cap and says it needs to be scrapped altogether.
Mason represents two accident victims trying to overturn the province’s initial $2500 cap on soft tissue injury payments, which has now been tripled to $7500.
Mason says it’s better than $2500, and he’s pleased the definition of a minor injury has changed.
“There’s been a change in the definition of ‘minor injury’ which will assist some accident victims,” he said. “It’s not perfect legislation. It doesn’t completely restore accident victims’ rights, which is disappointing. But it’s a move in the right direction.”
Mason says the Dexter government shouldn’t have raised the cap, but eliminated it completely.
“That was my understanding what the government said they were going to do during the election,” he said. “I think the cap could have been removed in its entirety without premiums going up, because insurers are making so much money in this province.”
Mason says he’s not waiting for the government to take action and will continue his legal battle to kill the cap.
“Absolutely we’ll continue,” he said. “We applied for leave to the Supreme Court of Canada approximately two months ago. That application is alive and we’re waiting for a decision.”
There’s no word when or even if the country’s highest court will deal with the issue.
