Legal Blog
I was not wearing my seatbelt- do I still have a claim?
A common concern of injured individuals involved in motor vehicle accidents is whether they still can claim against the at-fault driver if they were not wearing a seat belt. A recent court decision considers this issue and limits the seat belt defence to a maximum of 25%.
In a decision rendered on September 27, 2005, in Snushall v. Fulsang, the Court of Appeal capped the seatbelt defence at 25%.
In this case, the Plaintiff, Ms. Snushall, was a passenger in a vehicle that rear-ended another vehicle. At the time of the accident, the Plaintiff was not wearing a seatbelt.
The Court of Appeal held that, where contributory negligence is found on the basis of a seatbelt defence, its award should fall within a range of 0% to 25%. In a judgement delivered for the court, Juriansz J.A. noted that the upper limit of the range, that is 25%, is available only in those cases where the jury is satisfied that substantially all the damages could have been prevented by wearing a seatbelt ; and that, where the evidence does not establish that all the injuries would have been effectively prevented, the allocation should be less.
The rational for this decision rendered by the Court was that a Plaintiff is injured by physical forces resulting from abrupt changes in the momentum of the vehicle during the accident. The Defendant's negligence may be said to be the "cause" of the injuries because it initiates the sequence of events that lead to the accident and the physical forces that inflict the injuries. But for the Defendant's negligence, the accident would not have taken place.
The Court further noted that a defendant whose negligence results in the accident has breached the general tort duty to take care to avoid endangering others, whereas by not wearing a seatbelt a person does not commit a tort but fails to protect himself or herself from the tort of others.
In essence what this means for the injured party, is that they cannot be held to be more than 25% responsible for their injuries. As such, any claim for General damages can be reduced to a maximum of 25%, and only if a jury is satisfied that all of their injuries could have been prevented with the use of a seat belt. This is rarely the case.