Catastrophic Injury Lawyer in Calgary

There is no single legal definition that applies across all contexts. In practice it describes an injury causing permanent impairment that substantially changes a person's ability to work, care for themselves or live independently — spinal cord injury, significant brain injury, amputation, severe burns and multi-system trauma being the common examples.

Because they should. A claim cannot be valued before the prognosis is understood, and establishing what care will cost over a lifetime requires assessment by several disciplines and then economic evidence to convert it to present value. The alternative is settling on assumptions, which in a lifelong injury is a serious mistake.

In most injury claims the period is two years — but it does not simply run from the date of the incident. It runs from the point at which you knew, or ought reasonably to have known, three things: that you were injured, that the injury was attributable to someone else's conduct, and that it was serious enough to warrant bringing a proceeding. A separate ten-year outer limit runs from when the claim arose, and whichever period expires first governs. Different rules apply to minors and to people under a disability. Because the analysis is fact-specific, the safe course is to ask early rather than assume.

We act on a contingency fee basis, which means you pay no legal fees unless compensation is recovered. Disbursements — the out-of-pocket costs of running a file, such as medical records, expert reports and court filing fees — and applicable taxes may still apply. We will explain the arrangement in writing before you retain us.