Injury Assessment Team
At Alexander Holburn Beaudin & Lang LLP, we realize that the best legal advice is that which understands the context and environment in which the legal matter occurs. Our practice groups and our clients have access to a team of lawyers with the unusual benefit of having worked previously in the field of health.
Barbara Devlin and Darcie Laurient have each worked as physiotherapists prior to pursuing a career in law. Both lawyers bring this practical medical experience to bear by providing injury assessment expertise that can make a significant difference to our client cases.
For example:
- We recently advised on a case involving an alleged tear of the rotator cuff muscles subsequent to a direct fall on the shoulder. We recognized that such an injury would more likely result from a fall on an outstretched arm rather than a direct fall as the plaintiff reported.
- At a mediation, the plaintiff alleged that he suffered from chondromalacia (deterioration of the kneecap) but was still able to work as a carpet installer. We noted that the plaintiff’s ability to crawl and kneel was very inconsistent with a serious diagnosis of chondromalacia.
- At a trial, the plaintiff’s expert neurosurgeon provided an opinion that the subject motor vehicle accident caused the plaintiff’s disc herniation. On cross-examination, the expert agreed that his opinion of causation was based on the fact that the plaintiff complained of back pain, numbness and tingling, and pain radiating down the leg which are the typical signs of a disc herniation. We then brought the expert’s attention to physiotherapy notes recorded one week prior to the accident which indicated that the plaintiff complained of these same typical signs before the accident. In light of this evidence, the expert agreed that he was no longer certain about his opinion of the cause of the plaintiff’s disc herniation.
- In a case involving allegations of negligence by rescue personnel causing or exacerbating quadriplegia by failing to properly immobilize, we were successful in convincing the Plaintiff to abandon his claim for a waiver of costs on the basis that all damage occurred at the time of impact. After carefully analysing the mechanism of injury and identifying a pre-existing condition (severe spinal stenosis), we were able to marshal the necessary medical evidence, with which the Plaintiff’s experts agreed, to prove to a reasonable medical certainty that movement within normal range after the initial injury would unlikely exacerbate the injury as the only fracture was minor and not unstable.
