A former Coquitlam educator has been awarded almost $672,000 for injuries she suffered in a car accident in September 2016.
Lisa Campbell was working as a special education assistant at Gleneagle Secondary when she was a passenger in a 2006 GMC Sierra that was in a collision with a 2014 Honda Civic at the intersection of Dewdney Trunk Road and Lougheed Highway in Coquitlam.
The Sierra was being driven by Campbell’s common law partner, Glenn Leslie, who subsequently admitted liability for the accident. It suffered about $9,300 in damage, while the Honda was written off.
According to court documents, Campbell hit her head and right shoulder on the passenger door window during the collision and the heels of her feet came down and struck a metal bar beneath her seat.
Campbell testified in B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster that following the accident, she got out of the Sierra and “felt a little disoriented.” She said she also felt dizzy, bruised and that she had a headache and her neck was feeling "awkward and sore."
Campbell told the court by the next day the backs of her feet were bruised and tender so she iced them to reduce swelling.
During subsequent visits to her family doctor, Campbell testified she reported her various aches and discomforts and, more than a week after the accident, the pain in her feet was getting worse, like “stepping on little pins.”
Campbell said she received massage therapy as well as physiotherapy and shock wave treatments to help ease her symptoms, but they were largely ineffective. She said the pain in her feet was especially difficult and limited her ability to participate in everyday activities, including work.
In March 2021, Campbell had surgery on her right foot and had to spend a period of time using a mobility scooter then wearing a cast followed by a boot cast. She said subsequent physiotherapy also failed to progress the injury, leaving her in pain around the clock.
Campbell testified, by December 2019, she was also receiving counselling from a psychologist to help her deal with the difficulties the pain was causing her, including irritability and loss of sleep.
While Campbell said she returned to work gradually a month after the accident, and was subsequently given accommodations to account for her challenges lifting weight or climbing stairs. But by November 2019, she stopped working altogether and began receiving disability benefits.
Court heard Campbell also suffered further injuries in subsequent incidents following the accident, including a slip on ice in a parking lot at her school, a slip on liquid that had spilled on a hall floor in the school, as well as a tumble down some stairs.
Campbell testified prior to the car accident she’d had no history of falls and she believed they were related to the health issues it had caused.
Testimony from several physicians who had diagnosed and treated Campbell’s various maladies, as well as from expert witnesses, corroborated most of her challenges, including her inability to return to her job without “functional capacity and vocational assessments to determine the jobs that would be suited to her.”
In his ruling issued last Monday, Dec. 23, Justice Matthew Taylor said while Campbell, now 57, had lived a “reasonably active life” prior to the accident, her capacity to participate in activities like hiking, biking and tennis that she’d said she’d previously enjoyed had been reduced by her injuries.
But Taylor acknowledged some pre-existing conditions as well as the subsequent falls Campbell suffered also had a role in her physical and mental health injuries.
Taylor also gave some weight to the defence’s assertion that Campbell could have remained employed in some capacity and leaving her job was primarily her own decision, with no evidence her doctor had advised her to quit permanently because of the accident.
Such contingencies, Taylor said, warranted a 30 per cent reduction in potential damages for pain, suffering and lost past income. He also applied a similar discount to damages for loss of future income.
As well, Taylor awarded Campbell $161,312.07 for costs of her future care, considerably less than $477,800 she had been seeking, while both parties agreed on special damages totalling $17,652.79.
The total damages of $671,798.37 awarded by Taylor includes:
- $235,955.30 for loss of future income
- $161,312.07 for costs of future care
- $112,000 in non-pecuniary damages for pain, suffering, lost of enjoyment of life
- $99,610 for loss of past income
- $45,000 for housekeeping costs
- $17,921 for special damages
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