Car accidents and the Rules of Fault Determination

24 Oct Car accidents and the Rules of Fault Determination

A personal injury lawyer is going to take cases in which one of the parties has incurred damages as a result of the negligent behavior of the other party. This is the main definition of a personal injury case but it contains a lot of specifics. This is due to the fact that the possible causes are just that much. However, the most common one of them remains a car accident. Vehicular incidents are incredibly common and it’s safe to say that they tend to occur on a daily basis. As unpleasant as it may sound, this turns them into the most lucrative field of expertise. However, there are a lot of specifications that need to be properly and thoroughly considered prior to engaging into a case of this particular kind.

Out-of-court settlements

However, it is likely that your case isn’t going to reach the inside of a courtroom, if a lawsuit is even filed. The reason for this is that approximately 90% of the cases are being settled prior to getting to court. This is incredibly beneficial for a lot of different reasons. Nevertheless, the fact is that the province of Ontario abides by the Rules of Fault Determination which have to be considered at every step of the way.

Rules of Fault Determination

The Rules of Fault Determination are considered an insurance act which has been consolidated and is in legal force since the 31^st of December back in the remote 1990. These rules have never been amended which means that they are still satisfying the need of regulation of the social insurance relationships. With this in mind, it is important to specify that the insurer has the most power within this particular procedure.

Under the Rules, the insurer is required to make a determination of the degree of the fault of the insured party. Please note that if both of the parties in the accident have different insurers, they should all be there. The fault is also determined based upon damages that have arisen directly or indirectly from the accident.

The rule is rather basic and simple but the procedure to get there is overly complicated and it’s often the reason for which most people prefer to settle their cases. Settling also frees them off legal charges that they would have to pay for the court to process their case. At the same time the agreement has the same binding legal force as the verdict and it is fully enforceable. Of course, in order for one of the parties to enforce its conditions the other one would have to have breached it in a certain way. This is the way that a settlement agreement operates.