Court awards paralyzed plaintiff $4,500,000 for cost of future care

In reasons for judgment released today, the court in Warick v. Diwell, 2017 BCSC 68, awarded the plaintiff $4,500,000 for the cost of future care.  The facts in Warick were tragic.  The plaintiff was paralyzed and her husband killed after a semi-truck crossed the centre-line on Highway 5 and slammed into their car.  In giving reasons for the cost of future care award, Mr. Justice Shultes wrote as follows:

[1]             On March 1, 2009 the plaintiff Leslie Warick was involved in an extremely serious motor vehicle accident on Highway 5 near Kamloops. She and her husband of 27 years, along with two of their close friends, were returning from a ski holiday at Sun Peaks Resort to their home in Edmonton when their vehicle was struck by an oncoming semi-truck/trailer driven by the defendant David Diwell, which had crossed into their lane. Her husband and their two friends were killed in the collision and Ms. Warick suffered major injuries, the most serious of which was to her spinal cord, which has left her paralyzed from the waist down.

[2]             Most of Ms. Warick’s personal injury claims arising from the accident have been settled. What remains in issue is the cost of her future care.

[3]             The trial was conducted in a very efficient way. The many uncontested background matters were dealt with by an agreed statement of facts, and counsel were adept in focusing the evidence on those aspects of Ms. Warick’s current circumstances and future needs that are actually in dispute. The most important of these are the level of home care that she will require and the necessary skills of those who will provide it.

[356]     Subject to submissions on the issues to tax gross-up and management fees…I will award the following amounts:

TOTAL:   $4,503,880

The text of the full decision can be found here: http://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/jdb-txt/sc/17/00/2017BCSC0068.htm