Hi Terry,

Good to see you at the launch of the Home from the Sea campaign this morning. You make a number of points in your comment, but perhaps the main one is that there seems to be a lot of interest from lawyers in attracting automobile and other accident cases, but not much in pursuing medical malpractice claims. And you are right. Many lawyers are interested in doing automobile cases because the risk level is usually predictable and the vast majority can be settled for a good fee. Medical malpractice cases are in an entirely different category, definitely risky and require a subspecialist skill set which includes a willingness to go to trial. Any lawyer who is successful at malpractice work is likely to be successful at auto accident work. However, auto accident work can certainly be challenging and benefit from the experience and skill of lawyers who decide to concentrate on this type of work, and I take nothing away from such lawyers. I don’t think what I have described is the result of any conspiracy, people including lawyers have different skill sets and different tolerances for risk.

Ches Crosbie

I did take a look at your short video in front of Mile One Stadium and, later, back at your office. My comments are as follows . . .

Sure that is all Accident and Injury stuff, every lawyer in the phone book, or within a gun shot of the Court House on Duckworth Street, pretty well, has a shingle out for that sort of thing! Their bread and butter, if you well. Vehicle Accidents, Slip and Fall, Pedestrian Accidents, Personal Injury.

In Florida (when we are there in the wintertime), James Morgan of Morgan and Morgan: http://www.forthepeople.com/ is flat out, constantly on the radio 24/7. Also, huge Billboards on the Interstate Highways, etc. He is steady belt, at it all the time. If there was ever an Ambulance Chaser, John Morgan got the GPS and he is hot on the trail!

In my opinion there is too much of a bent in the Legal Community and the Justice System around Accident and Injury. I mean, in the end, don’t we all have to pay for those settlements, anyway, including the legal fees, through higher premiums when we renew our auto insurance, etc., through RC Anthony or MUNNS or whomever we are with? Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that persons who are victims of the sort of thing that you were talking about in the video clip, impaired drivers, etc., should not be property compensated for – they should! Absolutely! They should be put back in as good a condition as they were in before the accident! What I am saying it that it appears to me that the Rules of Court and the Law Society is all geared around Accident and Injury for the lucrative interest . . . the Bread and Butter for the Lawyers. It seems, this time of the years, in particular, the insurance industry (I’m told), comes down from their “Ivory Towers” and meets with all the Plaintiff Lawyers for Accident and Injury cases that have been outstanding for, maybe a year or two, and settles up. The clients and their lawyers all get a few dollars in the stocking just before Santa Clause arrives to pay off their January VISA statement.

Given that you know how I feel about the conclusions that you have arrived at in your “other book”, Why Most Medical Malpractice Victims Never Recover a Dime [it is stated that Canada (I would add, NL in particular) is not an easy place to win a medical malpractice case]. Therefore, there is, undoubtedly, a large imbalance between Accident and Injury Law vis-à-vis Medical Malpractice Law. But why does that have to be that way? And how do we go about changing that? Because we don’t have a Law School in NL, but we have a Medical School, would that be one reason why we come out on the bottom in this province in relation to Medical Malpractice? Or maybe CMA’s pockets are too deep and, together with the Health Authorities has all the best Lawyers on retainer? Is that it? Have they bought off most the Legal firms in St. John’s, like Cox and Palmer, Curtis Dawe, etc., putting all the lawyers in the entire firm in a conflict of interest with any potential Medical Malpractice Plaintiff? In Alberta rule 5.4: CanLII - Alberta Rules of Court, Alta. Reg. 390/1968, representation by agent. Part 1.1, Audience before the Court, Rule 5.4: With the permission of the Court, a person may be represented before the Court by an agent other than a solicitor. [In NL there is no law reform: unlike Nova Scotia and other provinces there is no “active” Law (Court) Reform. The link to law reform in NL – it has been broken since 1992: http://assembly.nl.ca/Legislation/sr/statutes/l08.htm]; http://www.law.ualberta.ca/alri/. Doesn’t the victims who were done bad by a medical doctor/hospital deserve the same sort of courtesy from the Justice System and Legal Community as do victims of Accident and Injury?

In the case of the Cameron Inquiry and the ER/PR fiasco, to which you went the Class Action route, with one representative Plaintiff, to capture the entire settlement – that case, in fact, didn’t really even go to Court, it was settled out of Court.

I may have deviated, slightly, from your topic, Pain of Remembering Loved Ones Killed in Road Accidents Helped by Optimism for Future, but I think you know where I am coming from. The system is not right. The legal threshold or bar should not have such a drastic contrast between Accident and Injury v. Medical Malpractice. The only question remaining, what is Terry Burry (and I’m not a lawyer), what is Ches Crosbie, what is The NL Law Society, what is The Canadian Bar Association, and, what is the Minister of Justice and the Attorney General, etc., etc. doing to change all of that?

Herein ends the first lesson. I could write on this topic all night, and send it to every committee at the Law Society and the Bar Association – it would probably fall all on deaf ears. They are, in my opinion, no different than the CMA, NLNU, NAPE, CUPE, NLTA, Board of Trade, etc., etc., they are closed shop and exist for the benefit of the card-carrying members who pay the annual or monthly fees to be a part of that group. As they say, membership has its privileges.

Welcome any comments

Terry

Posted by Terry Burry on December 2, 2011 at 02:25 PM

I am so pleased to here that someone is fianally standing up to the government of Newfoundland and Labrador, it warms my heart to know that one person of all the population cares enough to take that step forward. Ches I hope and pray you get what you are fighting for, You are a great man, thank you.

I agree fully with this position. Its great to see your interest in keeping this issue current. We all need to make our voices heard