What is the state of the evidence in a personal injury case?

British Columbia, Canada


The following excerpt is from Sevinski v. Vance, 2011 BCSC 892 (CanLII):

I am quite troubled by the plaintiff’s evidence. Aspects of that evidence go well beyond a frailty of memory or a natural and excusable tendency to exaggerate or place given evidence in a positive light. Here the plaintiff sought to mislead and to create a history that is not forthright. Having concluded that significant aspects of the plaintiff’s case, which are directly relevant to both the severity of her injuries and to her efforts to mitigate, are not reliable, where does the truth lie? This dilemma or difficulty was addressed by Southin J., as she then was, in Le v. Milburn, [1987] B.C.J. No. 2690: When a litigant practices to deceive, whether by deliberate falsehood or gross exaggeration, the court has much difficulty in disentangling the truth from the web of deceit and exaggeration. If, in the course of the disentangling of the web, the court casts aside as untrue something that was indeed true, the litigant has only himself or herself to blame. ...

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