Please note that the information provided herein is not legal advice and is provided for informational and educational purposes only.  If you need legal advice with respect to careless driving laws under the Ontario Highway Traffic Act, you should seek professional assistance (e.g. make a post on Dynamic Lawyers).  We have Toronto and Ottawa criminal defense lawyers/attorneys registered on Dynamic Lawyers who can offer information, advice, and assistance with respect to careless or dangerous driving.

Section 130 of the Ontario Highway Traffic Act establishes the offence for careless driving as follows:

130. Every person is guilty of the offence of driving carelessly who drives a vehicle or street car on a highway without due care and attention or without reasonable consideration for other persons using the highway and on conviction is liable to a fine of not less than $200 and not more than $1,000 or to imprisonment for a term of not more than six months, or to both, and in addition his or her licence or permit may be suspended for a period of not more than two years.

A few years back, a friend of mine lost control of her car while driving on a patch of uncleared ice.  Her car ended up crashing into City property and, after we called the police, they charged her with careless driving under s. 130.  She was faced with paying a fine of $325 and losing 6 demerit points!  I ended up doing some research on the offence of careless driving and here’s what I discovered by reading some cases:

1. The offence of careless driving is of a quasi-criminal nature.
2. It goes beyond mere error in judgment. It indicates a measure of indifference, a want of care for the matter in hand and an indifferent regard for the rights of other.
3. To support a charge of careless driving, the evidence must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused drove without due care and attention or without reasonable consideration for others.
4. The standard of care and skill to be applied has been long established and is not that of perfection.
5. The test is whether the accused, in light of existing circumstances of which he was aware or of which a driver exercising ordinary care should have been aware, failed to use the care and attention or to give to other persons using the highway the consideration that a driver of ordinary care would have used or given in the circumstances.
6. The use of the term “due care”, which means care owing in the circumstances, makes it quite clear that, while the legal standard of care remains the same in the sense that it is what the average careful man would have done in like circumstances, the factual standard is a constantly shifting one, depending on road, visibility, weather conditions, traffic conditions that exist or may reasonably be expected, and any other conditions that ordinary prudent drivers would take into consideration. It is a question of fact, depending on the circumstances in each case.
7. There is a further important element that must also be considered, namely, that the conduct must be of such a nature that it can be considered a breach of duty to the public and deserving of punishment.

Remember, if you need legal advice with respect to your careless driving charge, you should seek professional assistance (e.g. make a post on Dynamic Lawyers).  We have criminal defense lawyers/attorneys registered on Dynamic Lawyers who can offer information, advice, and assistance with respect to carless or dangerous driving.

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Average people in Ottawa have various avenues to pursue in trying to find the right lawyer for their particular case.  Regrettably, most of these avenues are inconvenient and sometimes very costly (e.g. an initial meeting with a lawyer could run you a few hundred bucks!).

More often than not, people find a lawyer through word of mouth referrals from friend and family, colleagues at work, or through professional organizations of which they are a part of or have access to (e.g. other lawyers, bankers, accountants, consultants, realtors, insurance agents, paralegals, etc.).  This, in fact, is how most lawyers find their clients.

Turning to the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Lawyer Referral Service will cost you $6 for a 30-minute conversation with one lawyer.

Finally, people may turn to the Yellow Pages and simply pick an advertisement and make a phone call.  I’ve been told that people tend to pick the biggest advertisement because they somehow believe that the bigger the ad, the more successful the lawyer or law firm.

The point here is that finding the right Ottawa lawyer for you is an important undertaking.  You don’t want to have the lawyer who drafted your will or acted on your house deal to represent you in a criminal case: they may not be up-to-date on court room procedure or have experience cross-examining adverse parties.

People in Ottawa generally need a lawyer only for a limited time and have a limited budget for such engagements. Yet it is hard for these people to distinguish lawyers and law firms from each other, especially given that many small and medium law firms have a general practice. It may also be intimidating for them to approach lawyers with their legal issues, given that doing so may cost money (e.g. $500 for the initial hour visit) and ultimately retaining a lawyer could be very expensive given the uncertainty of hourly billings.

Taken together, these factors likely make people in Ottawa tend to shy away from seeking out or hiring lawyers (sometimes to their own detriment!).  Those sophisticated people who surf the Web looking for a lawyer are hungry for more information than what is provided in the YellowPages or a newspaper advertisement. They are doing a Google or Yahoo search to seek out a particular type of Ottawa attorney in a particular field in a particular area. They are also looking for testimonials and looking for the experience of an Ottawa lawyer.

All in all, it makes perfect sense for people in Ottawa facing these challenges to turn to Dynamic Lawyers as a way of finding the right lawyer for the right price.  Making a post is free and anonymous, posts remain on the website for up to 45 days, and users have the opportunity to receive information and multiple quotes from local lawyers specializing in the area of law requested.  Comparing answers and then following up with the lawyer of your choice is just plain smart – particularly in a field where it is hard to compare one service provider from the next.  All in all, a very good deal…

So now that you have found the right avenue to find a lawyer in a convenient and cost-effective manner: what next?  Well, let’s talk about legal fees.  Many lawyers will charge you a fixed fee for the first consultation.  At this meeting, they’ll ask you questions about yourself and your situation.  The lawyer is trying to understand the legal issues so that he can offer you some type of recommendation on how to proceed.  If the meeting goes well, you may end up signing the lawyer’s retainer agreement, which stipulates the services that are going to be offered and the fees that are going to be charged.  The fees are typically hourly fees ranging from $200 to upwards of $1000 / hour, depending on the size of the law firm, where it’s located (and it’s physical appearance and amenities), and the particular lawyer’s expertise and reputation.

At the first meeting with the lawyer, you should ask some basic questions related to:

1. What services will the lawyer specifically provide;
2. Billing, costs and budget;
3. Time line;
4. Communication (e.g. by phone, e-mail, etc. and how regularly);
5. Past Experience in a particular field;
6. Strategy;
7. Style (e.g. aggressive trial lawyer or alternative dispute resolution lawyer); and
8. Terminating the retainer (e.g. failure to pay, failure to act, breakdown in the relationship, loss of confidence, etc.).

written by admin \\ tags: attorneys, dynamic lawyers in ottawa, law society of upper canada, lawyer, lawyers, lawyers in ottawa, ottawa, referral service

There are over 17,000 individuals in Toronto who can call themselves a Toronto attorney.  Each Toronto attorney typically has his or her own specialty.  The day of the general practitioner is not as it once was (and is slowly fading away).  In fact, specialization is a preferred strategy to earn above-average returns in any given industry.  Besides, think of how hard it would be for a lawyer who ‘does it all’ to keep up to date with the changing laws in every given legal area.  It’s way too difficult and that’s where negligence cases may arise.

In any event, I thought I’d spend some time discussing the various types of Toronto attorneys that you can come across on a day-to-day basis.  Here’s the first breakdown of types of Toronto attorneys (please keep in mind that this list of the types of lawyers out there is not exhaustive):

• Toronto Real Estate Attorneys: help you buy and sell residential, investment, farm, cottage, recreational, condominium, and cooperative properties.  They also you get a mortgage financing and refinancing as well.

• Toronto Personal Injury Attorneys: help you litigate, settle, or otherwise resolve claims arising from:
  • accident benefits claims
  • dog bites
  • disability claims
  • medical malpractice
  • motor vehicle accidents
  • negligence actions
  • personal injury claims
  • product liability
  • slip and falls

• Toronto Business Attorneys: help you to incorporate and organize, merge/amalgamate, and dissolve your business.  They can help prepare, review, interpret, revise, negotiate, litigate, and resolve the following business documents:
  • shareholder agreement
  • partnership agreement
  • joint venture agreement
  • franchise agreement
  • commercial leases
  • business acquisitions
  • regulatory compliance
  • constructions contracts
  • employment agreements

• Toronto Wills and Estates Attorneys: they offer services from a basic will and powers of attorney  to more complicated tax-planning structures, such as inter-vivos trusts and estates freezes.  They can also help personal representatives in the administration and distribution of estate assets.  Finally, they can litigate on behalf of beneficiaries or the estate trustee on issues such as mental capacity of the testator, validity of a will, etc.

• Toronto Family Attorneys: they can help you with your marriage breakup by drafting a separation agreement.  They can also help you with issues such as divorce, spousal and child support, child custody, possession of the matrimonial home, and the equalization of net family property.
  

• Toronto Criminal Defense Attorneys: they can help represent you against government bodies that have charged you with criminal or provincial offences (e.g. careless driving), including:
  • DUI (driving under the influence)
  • assault
  • sexual assault
  • fraud
  • theft

written by admin \\ tags: accident, accidents, agreement, attorneys, beneficiaries, business, business acquisitions, commercial leases, contracts, criminal, custody, defense, Dynamic Lawyers, family, franchise agreement, fraud, incorporation, incorporators, injuries, injury, investment farm, joint venture toronto personal actions, law, lawyer, lawyers, liabilities, litigants, litigation, marriage, mentality, negligence, negligence cases, negotiating, Negotiations, offence, partnership, personal injury claims, practitioner, preferred strategy, property, revisions, separation, shareholder, shareholders, shareholdings, testator, toronto, toronto attorney, toronto attorneys, toronto business, toronto real estate, Wills and Estates

Please note that the information provided herein is not legal advice and is provided for informational and educational purposes only.   If you need legal advice with respect to retaining a personal injury lawyer, you should seek professional assistance (e.g. make a post on Dynamic Lawyers).  We have Toronto personal injury lawyers registered on the website who can assess your situation and, if need be, represent you in court proceedings or help settle your case.

Slip and fall law in Ontario is based on negligence law – i.e. a property owner was careless in doing something or failing to do something that ultimately caused injury and damages to another party.  This “something” may have been a failure to remove snow and ice from a walkway, spilled liquid on the floor, fix a hole or gap in the ground, or provide insufficient lighting in and around widely-used public areas.  In what is to follow, I’ll shed some light on some of the major considerations that go into slip and fall cases:

Duty of Care
Did the property owner owe you a duty to take care in the circumstances to do something or refrain from doing something to make the property safe (e.g. so as to prevent a slip and fall from happening)?  This so-called “duty of care” is a legal obligation on an party to adhere to a standard of care (discussed next), the breach of which may create liability for that party.  The Ontario Occupiers’ Liability Act supersedes the common law or judge made law duty of care and imposes a statutory duty of care on property owners as follows (s. 3(1)):

An occupier of premises owes a duty to take such care as in all the circumstances of the case is reasonable to see that persons entering on the premises, and the property brought on the premises by those persons are reasonably safe while on the premises.

Standard of Care
Now that it has been established that a property owner has a duty to make their premises safe for people entering and while on those premises, the next step is to determine whether the property owner breached the standard of care through their conduct (i.e. actions or omissions).  Generally, property owners are held to a standard of care that would be expected of a reasonable property owner of ordinary intelligence and prudence in their circumstances.  Examples of negligence in slip and fall cases may include: failing to remove snow and ice from a roadway, failing to clean up spilled liquids on the ground, failing to fix uneven walkways, etc.

Causation
Even if a property owner owed a duty of care and breached the standard of care required, they may not be liable if their negligence did not cause the injuries complained of.  The general rule in Ontario is: ‘but for’ the party’s negligence (in other words, if the party’s negligence did not exist), would the injured party have suffered his/her/its damages and injuries resulting from the slip and fall?  Here, the injured party must demonstrate that, more likely than not, the property owner’s conduct was necessary for the occurrence of the injuries from the slip and fall.  Hence, if it cannot be ascertained as probable that the property owner’s negligence caused the injuries complained of, then the negligent property owner may not be ultimately liable.

Remoteness
Even if a property owner owed a duty of care, breached the standard of care, and caused the complaining party’s damages, that property owner  may still not be liable if those damages were too remote.  This means that the property owner is only liable for damages so long as the type of injury suffered was foreseeable as a probable consequence of the negligent act or was reasonably foreseeable as a real possibility.  The idea behind this rule is that it would be unfair to make a negligent party bear all of the consequences of his/her/it’s carelessness – especially when a moment’s inadvertence results in trivial or freakish consequences.

Defences
Even if a property owner is negligent (based on all of the factors outlined above being met), they may still have a defence that will either limit or negate their liability entirely.  Such defence include contribution (i.e. the injured party contributed to their own slip and fall accident by wearing flip flops on a cold and icy day with no grip), voluntary assumption of risk (e.g. the injured party had signed a waiver of liability in favour of the property owner) or illegality (e.g. the injured party was doing something illegal at the time of the slip and fall – e.g. breaking and entering, etc.).

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Toronto law firms can help answer your legal questions, facilitate your transaction (e.g. business, real estate, wills and estates, family, etc.) or even represent you in court.  To find a Toronto lawyer or law firm, go to Dynamic Lawyers and make a post.  It’s free and anonymous and Toronto lawyers and law firms will respond to you with information and quotes for you to compare.

Here are some of the different types of law that Toronto law firms can assist you in:

• Accidents and Injuries: Involved in an accident where you suffered personal injury?
• Business: Need corporate or commercial agreements? Need to have a lawyer help you do a transaction?
• Charities and Not-For-Profit: Need to establish a Not-For-Profit corporation or obtain charity status?
• Civil Litigation – Higher Court: Have a serious legal claim that needs to be litigated in the Superior Court, Divisional Court, etc.?
• Civil Litigation – Small Claims Court: Have a legal claim (e.g. breach of contract, negligence, etc.) for less than $10,000?
• Constitutional / Human Rights and Freedoms: Challenging a law or government action / inaction?
  Criminal: Charged with a criminal offence? Appealing a conviction?
• Employment and Labour: Need an employment agreement? Unjustly terminated? Need to know your rights?
• Family: Going through a separation or divorce? Fighting to get custody or access? Dealing with spousal and child support?
• Government: Need to lobby the government? Need to resolve a dispute with a government agency?
• Highway Traffic Tickets: Charged with speeding or DUI? Need to fight traffic tickets?
• Immigration: Need to immigrate to Canada? Fighting against deportation?
• Insurance: Having difficulties with your Insurance company?.
• Intellectual Property: Need to register a copyright or trademark? Need help with a patent?
• Landlord and Tenant: Need a resolve a dispute? Need to know your rights?.
• Notary Public / Commissioner: Need to notarize or commission your documents?
• Real Estate: Need someone to facilitate your residential or commercial purchase, sale, or lease?
• Tax: Need help structuring your tax affairs? Need help resolving tax disputes with the Canada Revenue Agency?
• Wills, Estates and Trusts: Need a will? Need to update your will? Find out why having an up-to-date will is a must.

Try to consult with a couple of Toronto law firms and Toronto attorneys until you’re comfortable with whom you’re speaking with.  Toronto law firms differ in size, location, expertise, and reputation.  Go to Dynamic Lawyers and save time and money finding the right Toronto law firms and Toronto attorneys who specialize in the legal area you require!

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Toronto Attorneys and Toronto Lawyers: go to Dynamic Lawyers to make a post of your legal issue(s) and have Toronto Attorneys and Toronto Lawyers respond with information and quotes.

What’s the difference between “Attorney”  and “Lawyer”?  Well, in Ontario, people who have studied law in law school, passed the Bar Admissions test, and have been called to the Bar of Ontario are called different things to different people.  The Law Society of Upper Canada calls them licensees.  In court, judges call them counsel.  Their clients call them their lawyer or attorney.  And they call themselves barristers and solicitors.  So what do all of these things mean?  Basically, they all come to mean the same thing, with a few minor comments about the differences between a barrister and solicitor.

A lawyer is the normal thing we call persons learned in the law and licensed to practice law.  An attorney works too, but this is more Americanized for some reason (at least in my humble experience).  Counsel means the same thing as a lawyer or attorney, but is used less often – lest some people confuse the lawyer with some type of counselor or consultant (unless the term legal counsel is used).

The distinction between a barrister and a solicitor is interesting and worthy of a few words here.  Toronto attorneys are both capable of calling themselves barristers and solicitors.  In other jurisdictions, lawyers may be one or the other but not both.  The word barrister, in its deep-rooted English traditions, comes from those who are called to bar and who advocate for their clients before courts and tribunals.  This is to be distinguished from solicitors, who typically are engaged by clients to do contractual work and facilitate transactions (e.g. business, real estate, wills and estates, family, etc.).

For more information about the differences between barristers and solicitors, check out what Wikipedia has to say.

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