A driver who was discovered 100% answerable for an accident can’t make damage claims, B.C.’s Civil Decision Tribunal (CRT) stated in a Jul. 10 determination (Ly v. Lao, 2024 BCCRT 660).
Applicant Tan Loi Ly was reversing his automobile out of a parking stall on Jul. 15, 2020, when he collided with a automobile being pushed by respondent Yin Ying Lao down the car parking zone’s aisle. Each drivers are insured by the Insurance coverage Company of British Columbia (ICBC), which discovered the applicant 100% answerable for the accident.
Ly filed two CRT disputes. One to find out legal responsibility and damages. The opposite to find out if his accidents are ‘minor accidents’ beneath the definition in B.C.’s Insurance coverage (Automobile) Act and Minor Harm Regulation. CRT vice chair Christopher Rivers opted to deal with each disputes in a single determination.
The applicant and respondent collided in a Vancouver car parking zone. Pictures present the applicant’s proper rear bumper hit the respondent’s proper entrance bumper. Their accounts of the accident differ.
“The applicant himself provides two totally different accounts of the accident,” Rivers wrote in his determination. “He gave one account by phone to ICBC when he reported the collision, and a second to the CRT in a signed assertion setting out his place.”
Within the first, the applicant informed ICBC he was midway via reversing out of a parking stall, checked over his shoulder and noticed no different autos and continued to reverse. The events collided.
Within the second account, he stated he accomplished reversing out of the stall and put the automobile into drive when the respondent hit him. “He says the power of the affect pushed the automobile again into the stall. The applicant’s partner supplied a signed assertion saying the identical factor,” in line with the choice.
In the meantime, the respondent informed ICBC stated they have been travelling within the car parking zone aisle and got here to a cease to permit the applicant’s automobile to drive out of a stall, after they have been hit on the appropriate facet of their automobile.
The applicant argued ICBC’s notes of the accidents have been “unsigned, undated rumour and needs to be given no weight.” Rivers’ determination famous the tribunal positioned vital weight upon ICBC’s notes of the events’ accident experiences, partly as a result of the variations between these experiences will not be minor.
“The applicant doesn’t say whether or not he included particulars like inserting the automobile in drive or being pushed again into the stall in his preliminary report, or if he didn’t, why not,” the choice learn. “Equally, he doesn’t deal with the distinction between ICBC’s observe that his automobile was midway via backing out and his later assertion that he accomplished backing out earlier than inserting the automobile into drive. I discover this hole is simply too extensive to clarify by suggesting ICBC made an error in transcribing or summarizing the applicant’s name.”
Pictures present the respondent’s automobile within the laneway and the applicant’s automobile within the parking stall. Experiences from each events don’t make clear whether or not the autos have been moved after the accident and don’t assist the tribunal to make a dedication.
However the location of the harm on the autos does. The respondent’s entrance proper bumper is broken beneath the headlight, forward of the tire, on the automobile’s proper facet. The applicant’s proper, rear bumper has a single, round mark. That makes the images extra in keeping with the respondent’s description, Rivers stated.
“I discover the applicant’s preliminary description is a extra seemingly model of occasions…It demonstrates that he didn’t reverse his automobile with warning, because the respondent was undisputedly there.”
Provincial rules require an applicant to show their case. However the tribunal decided he had not completed so, was solely responsible for the accident and never entitled to damages. By extension, Rivers wrote, “since I dismiss the applicant’s declare for damages, I discover there isn’t a profit to figuring out whether or not his accidents are ‘minor accidents,’ and I dismiss his declare as moot.”
Characteristic picture courtesy of iStock/AWSeebaran
