INEVITABLE ACCIDENT 

Act Of God. Inevitable accident. These are terms sometimes heard from ICBC when they say you can’t recover compensation for your injuries.

An Act of God or inevitable accident (it’s the same thing) is something that is no one’s fault. Hitting a deer. Skidding on black ice. These are common examples.

Typically, such events cause single-vehicle accidents. And if you are driving alone at the time of such an accident, you are probably not going to be able to recover for your injuries because no one (except maybe yourself) was at fault.

But let’s say you have a passenger - your wife, for example. You hit a deer. Both of you are seriously injured. You, as the driver, will get little or no compensation for your injuries. And when your wife talks to the ICBC adjuster, she will likely be told that she cannot get compensation for her injuries either. The adjuster will say that her injuries were caused by an Act of God or inevitable accident - a deer running in front of a vehicle is just one of those unavoidable hazards of life.

Wrong! There are actually very few Acts of God or inevitable accident that deprive a passenger of compensation. Almost always, sufficient fault can be attached to the driver.

And if your passenger wife was injured, isn’t that what you want? To be at fault, so that she can be compensated fully for her injuries through your insurance policy? After all, that’s one of the main reasons you got public liability (third party) insurance in the first place! Many single vehicle accidents involve family members who are passengers. If you aren’t looking where you are going and run off the road with your wife in the passenger seat, you may not be able to recovery anything for your own injuries. But certainly you want your wife to be fully compensated for hers. And she can be, because you were at fault. You caused the accident.

But getting back to the examples of hitting a deer, or skidding on black ice. Almost always, if the circumstances are looked at closely, sufficient fault can be found for innocent passengers to recover.

Maybe you were going a little too fast (the speed limit may be a little too fast) on a familiar road in early evening where you have seen deer on the road many times before. If so, the law will probably attach enough fault to you so that your passenger can recover. Or maybe you had two beer (below the legal limit) and took your eyes off the road for a moment or two. Or perhaps you continued to drive your truck at or near the speed limit, at night, with occasional rain and a temperature near freezing - ideal black ice conditions. There are many possible scenarios.

If you are in a single vehicle accident where there are injuries to passengers, you should get knowledgeable legal advice immediately. ICBC adjusters are alert to such cases. The first thing any adjuster will do is try to get enough on record to support the defence of Act of God or inevitable accident.

In most cases, however, early and careful examination of the facts is likely to show fault of some kind. And your injured passengers will be properly compensated.

How common is a true Act of God or inevitable accident situation, without any fault? Well, I have been doing personal injury work for over 20 years and I have seen only one.

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